


Under Your Sky

by gooseclaws



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Title: Nicole Haught Makes a Series of Poor Decisions, Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Family Issues, I'm serious about the angst, Indie musician Nicole Haught, Minor Waverly Earp/Champ Hardy, Pop star Waverly Earp, Relationship Issues, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2019-11-23 23:25:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 75,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseclaws/pseuds/gooseclaws
Summary: Pop star Waverly Earp asks Nicole Haught to collaborate on a new single. Nicole almost says no.Luckily for both of them, Waverly's very convincing.





	1. Chapter 1

Xavier Dolls showed up at Nicole Haught's apartment, breathing as heavily as if he had sprinted halfway across the city to get there.

She let him in, the crease between her eyes digging deeper as he hung up his scarf and jacket. He carried a thick manila folder and didn't speak.

When he headed for the kitchen, she followed, waiting as he set the folder on the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. As soon as it touched his lips, he shuddered.

"What's going on?" she asked.

He set the mug on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. "WAVES wants to do a song with you."

Nicole gaped at him as though he'd grown a second head. "You're joking."

Dolls met her stare with one of his own, as placid as a lake on a clear day. "I don't joke. And neither do they, looks like. They sent over all the usual boilerplate, and I mean all of it." He hefted the straining manila folder.

"But... WAVES? And me?" Nicole leaned against her kitchen counter, uncrossing her arms to massage her temples. Someone seemed to have pumped her full of helium. The laminate edge of the counter pressed into her spine, anchoring her in place. "She's pop and I'm... is there an opposite to pop music?"

"Pop's a very diverse genre, Haught." Dolls grounded her, too. His face, his voice, his carriage: everything about him was steady and sure. "She's branching out, and you're talented."

"You have to say that, you're my agent," said Nicole, delivering the line with well-worn ease.

"And your friend." His riposte was just as practiced. "So? Are you interested?"

"I don't know. Go over it with me again?" Ignoring Dolls' sigh, Nicole turned to her age-stained coffee maker and poured herself a cup. The coffee was room temperature, and it was already mid-afternoon, and if she drank any more she'd never get to sleep. She drank it anyway.

Dolls dropped the folder on her counter and the entire apartment shook. "WAVES is working on a new album. She wants you to be a guest artist on one of the tracks. This would include recording the song and filming a video if the label is willing."

"Do you know anything about this song?"

"All I've been told is that she's still working on it."

Nicole's eyebrows arched as she took another sip of tepid coffee. "I didn't know she wrote her own songs."

"It sounds like you should do a little research on her. You don't have to decide today, but I'd like to respond within twenty-four hours."

"Very punctual." Her fingers drummed on the side of her mug. "Okay, agent-Dolls, what's your opinion?"

He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his feet shoulder-width apart. "I don't think you need my opinion to know this could be a career-changing opportunity. Of all the pop artists out there, WAVES is probably most compatible with your particular brand. She has enormous potential, creatively and financially, and she's already one of the most recognized names in the world. Having your voice and your guitar on her next album would give me a lot of clout in negotiating a tour for you, plus the gig pays extremely well. It's not retire-early money, but it would certainly finance a full album release."

"And what does friend-Dolls say?"

Without relaxing at all, he managed to shrug. It hurt Nicole to watch. "The studio's paying for everything. Should be fun, right?"

"You make a strong argument." She sipped her drink and studied him. He studied her right back. She sighed. "I'll consider it, okay?"

"Good." Dolls gathered the folder and headed for the door. Nicole followed him, accepting the folder for a moment as he shrugged on his coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck. She handed it back and made a show of shaking the exertion out of her arm. He almost smiled.

As Dolls stepped into the dingy hallway, he turned. "This is ultimately your decision. And I'll respect it either way. But I think this is a great opportunity for you."

She closed the door behind him, locked it, and slumped against it. She pressed her mug against her forehead, the cool curve of ceramic giving her a point of focus. Everything lingered—Nicole, her emotions, her coffee—until she straightened, drained the last lukewarm drop, and headed to her bedroom to listen to hours of frothy pop music.

* * *

WAVES' real name was Waverly Earp, she was in her early twenties, and her music wasn't as bad as Nicole had expected.

Her early stuff, Nicole remembered from her own early twenties. It threaded through the soundtrack of hazy memories of parties and drinking and dancing. Neither the music nor the activities had been Nicole's cup of tea, but she forgave herself and WAVES their youthful indiscretions.

Each proceeding album showed the growth of WAVES as an artist and of Waverly Earp as a songwriter. Her relationship with the listener shifted from fun acquaintance to trusted confidant. And still, her music was meant to get people up and dancing.

Nicole laid back on her bed, one knee bent and the other crossed over it, keeping the beat with a roll of her ankle. As she added a few songs to the various playlists she kept organized by mood, Nicole turned to WAVES' music videos.

She was on the phone to Dolls one minute into the first video.

He vaulted past any greetings. "I told you, you've got twenty-four hours to decide. Although at this point you've got..." She imagined him tugging his sleeve aside to check his watch. "...Eighteen and a half hours."

"I don't need them. Have you seen her music videos? I can't do that." Nicole paced her bedroom, tracing the edges of the woven rug she'd found in a secondhand shop.

"What is 'that'?"

"There's dancing. Dolls, I know a line dance or two but other than that it's just a lot of swayin' back and forth." She dropped back onto her bed in a cacophony of straining springs and a rattling metal frame.

"No one's going to force you to dance, and if they want you to dance, you don't have to do the song. We can hash all this out with her team."

"Right."

"Just..." Dolls sighed, and Nicole squeezed her eyes together. "Think of this with the part of you that almost became a cop. Don't panic. Take your time and make the best choice for you."

"I just don't see how this is going to work. I still think Ashton Kutcher is going to show up and tell me I'm on Punk'd."

"That kind of reference is going to start dating you, you know. You need to develop some more contemporary tastes."

She rolled her eyes. "Isn't the whole point of my music that I'm bringing back good old sounds?"

"With a modern sensibility." She knew his lips had moved ever so slightly upward, in his best imitation of a smile. "Make a deal with me. Resist throwing yourself out of the window for five minutes. Just five minutes. Then you can panic as much as you want."

"What's going to happen in five minutes?" He couldn't see her, but she scowled at him just in case.

"Just wait. And breathe. Whatever you decide, I've got your back."

She dropped her phone on her stomach when he hung up and folded her hands over it. Her eyes traced the craters and peaks of the popcorn ceiling hanging above her.

Her phone warbled at her. She held it over her face to see a text from an unknown number. Then another. She opened them, brows furrowed.

 **Unknown:** Hi!  
**Unknown:** This is Waverly  
**Unknown:** Earp  
**Unknown:** Waverly Earp, I mean  
**Unknown:** I got your number from my people who got it from your people  
**Unknown:** Is this okay?

Nicole blinked at her phone, then added Waverly to her contacts.

 **Nicole:** It's fine. What's up?

 **Waverly:** I just wanted to reach out about this guest artist thing. Your people told my people that you're not sure about it  
**Waverly:** but I don't want you to think this is just business  
**Waverly:** or maybe you like things that way, I've met people like that  
**Waverly:** I just really like your music and thought how cool it would be to do a song with you and my life is pretttttty cool these days because I say stuff like that and people make it happen

Waverly liked her music? WAVES, a "pop kween" (according to the internet), liked Nicole's "indie blues-folk-rock" (also according to the internet) sound? The tips of Nicole's ears started to feel like they were drenched in noontime sun.

 **Nicole:** You like my music?

 **Waverly:** Yeah, it's not like that's weird or anything  
**Waverly:** is it weird?

 **Nicole:** Not weird, just surprising  
**Nicole:** And thank you. I should have said that first

 **Waverly:** Can I call you?

"Uh," said Nicole, out loud, just before her phone started to ring. Her fingers turned to rubber and she nearly fumbled the device as she brought it to her ear. "Waverly?"

"Hi!" Nicole jerked the phone away from her ear, and as she brought it back she heard Waverly muttering an apology. "—rry, sorry, that was loud, I'm a bit nervous."

A laugh bubbled in Nicole's throat. She stood up, started pacing the edges of her rug again, slower this time, balancing like a kid walking along a curb. "I'm making you nervous?"

"Well, I've never reached out to another artist like this before. But I have a lot of control over this album and I said, 'I want to work with Nicole Haught' and they said sure, so I really, really, really want you to say yes."

"I really am flattered." Nicole made her way to the desk and fiddled with the corner of a piece of paper.

"I'll be more flattered if you say yes."

Another laugh escaped Nicole. She stepped out of her bedroom, suddenly claustrophobic. "Now, see, that's what I find surprising. You're WAVES."

"Ugh, don't say it like that."

"Like you're not a huge pop star with millions of fans and tens of millions of hits on your videos?" The smile on Nicole's face burned her cheeks. She perched on the back of her old couch—another thrift shop find—and opened the window beside her. It was December, and it was snowing. It was just cold enough to make Nicole feel less like a rocket about to explode.

Waverly had gone a bit quiet. "Like I'm... I don't know, not a regular person with regular feelings anymore."

"I'm sorry. I'm still just surprised you want to work with me. I know, I know," said Nicole, cutting off a protest from Waverly, "you like my stuff, but are you sure I'm a good match for your style?"

"What? Of course you are! I might be a pop artist, or whatever, but pop has room for all different sounds and influences! That's what makes it so fun! And like I said, lots of control. We'll make it work."

"We will, huh?" Nicole leaned by the window, watching cars creep down salted streets, watching pedestrians slog through heavy, falling snow. A horn honked in the distance. Someone else honked back in argument.

"Yeah, we will. If you're in."

A chill rattled Nicole's bones, up her spine and into her teeth. In the street below, a couple stumbled by. The man slipped and landed on his ass, the woman laughed, and the sound trickled through Nicole's screen like the last memory of a fading dream.

Nicole sighed. She closed the window, bolted it, and said, "I'm in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this note, thanks for reading everything above! I really appreciate it, especially since I'm a new author to this fandom and I haven't written in a while and I feel very rusty. 
> 
> Notes on future chapters won't be as chatty, but I do want to take care of a little housekeeping before we get too far into this sucker.
> 
> 1) I've got this whole thing written. I'm going to post one chapter a week. I'm not going to dump the whole thing at once because it's taken me since August 2018 to write and _by god_ I'm going to savor releasing this thing piece by piece. If I've done my math right, I'll be done posting mid-August 2019. ~~Maybe we'll have Season 4 by then? Who knows.~~ Hahaha _sob_
> 
> 3) I'm also on tumblr as [gooseclaws](https://gooseclaws.tumblr.com/) [edit: and on twitter as [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)]. I literally just made it, pretty much for the sole purpose of interacting with readers if that's something you're interested in. Maybe it's not! IDK! Do what you want, I'm not your mom!


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as Nicole ended her call with Waverly, she called her girlfriend. The call went straight to voicemail; Shae worked as an oncology fellow at a nearby hospital and free time was a scarce resource. After sending an excited but cryptic text encouraging Shae to call her ASAP, Nicole settled back into her bed with hot chocolate and the full playlist of Waverly's music videos.

By the time Shae called, Nicole had gone around the horn once and was back to Waverly's party anthem days. She answered the phone, snug in her bed with only the Christmas lights strung by the ceiling illuminating the room.

"So?" said Shae. "What's the news?"

Nicole imagined Shae at the nurses' station, leaning on the desk to the chagrin of whichever steely nurse was trying to keep everything running like a well-oiled machine.

She sat up and set her mug of hot chocolate on the side table. "Babe, you're not going to believe this." 

"Oh my god, what is it? The suspense is literally killing me. Wait, are you listening to WAVES?"

Nicole flailed at her laptop and finally succeeded in pausing the video. "That's kind of what I'm calling about. WAVES wants me to do a song with her for her new album."

"Holy shit! That's huge!" Someone mumbled in the background on Shae's end, and Nicole folded it into her imagination: the flint-eyed nurse issuing Dr. Pressman her first and only warning.

Lying back in bed, staring at the popcorn ceiling, Nicole raised a hand to her forehead and exhaled. "I still can't believe it."

"You said yes, right? Nicole, tell me you said yes? Just because you're a starving artist—"

The first edge of irritation nipped at Nicole's mood. "Shae, come on."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry. This could be so good for you, though. Do a song with WAVES, build your fanbase, release some more music of your own... I'm just saying, it would be a relief to know you've got stable income."

"We've talked about this," said Nicole, now with her eyes closed, her hand flat over them. "I have my finances, you have yours. As long as I'm not asking you to bail me out, you don't get to comment on how I handle my money."

"I know, but—"

"There's no buts. You always do this." Nicole sat bolt upright, pulling her pillow into her lap and squeezing it in a fist. The pilling jersey fabric of the pillowcase tickled her palm.

"Babe, I'm just concerned. You never want to talk when I bring it up."

"Because you always make me feel like I'm dead weight. You know what? I'm done talking about this."

"Nicole!"

"I'm doing the song with WAVES, okay? Bye."

Resisting the urge to throw her phone across the room, Nicole instead tossed her pillow on the floor. She regretted it as soon as she peeled herself out of the bed to retrieve it.

She sat back in the bed, legs hanging over the side, and opened the top drawer of her nightstand. She fished out the small box that sat there. Her grandmother's engagement ring sat inside, as bright and clear as it had been when her grandfather gave it to her.

How long had it been sitting there? The last time she'd taken it out, she and Shae had gone to the beach, sun-kissed and laughing until a stupid argument had turned the whole thing sour. Nicole had shoved the ring back in the drawer as soon as she got home.

That was the last summer before Shae started her fellowship. Almost two years ago. 

She closed the box, put it back in its place, and readied herself for a night of fitful sleep.

* * *

When Nicole told Dolls she'd accepted Waverly's offer, he offered her a half-smile, said, "good," and took out a red pen to start marking up her contract.

They sat in his office: the desk in the corner of his living room and whatever chair Nicole found to prop herself up in front of it. This particular chair was metal and squeaky plastic, practically glowing with a hideous floral pattern.

"You're really excited, aren't you?" asked Nicole. She tipped back in her seat as she studied him. Her stomach swooped with the sudden tug of gravity, her body and the earth straining toward each other.

"And you're not? I see the smile on your face."

"Okay, I'll admit it, this is pretty cool. I wasn't sure at first but Waverly convinced me."

"You're going to break my chair."

"This thing cost you $3." Nicole bobbed in the seat, rocking herself with a foot planted on the back of Dolls' desk. The plastic seat flexed with each dip and rise.

"I don't want to spend another $3 replacing it."

She kept on bobbing. He stared at her a moment longer, then said, "so Waverly ended up texting you? She asked for your number and I thought you might benefit from hearing from her directly."

"Yeah. She called me, too. She's certainly something."

He tapped his pen on his desk. "At least she's convincing. How did Shae take it?"

Nicole jerked forward, and the chair slammed back to earth. Dolls looked up. He lifted his eyebrows just a smidgen. "I thought she'd be excited," he said.

"She was. Then she started going on about how it'll help me make more money and I kind of snapped." 

After a moment studying Nicole, Dolls set down his pen and folded his hands in front of him. "She knows you make a decent living, right? You can afford rent on your own."

"Of course she knows, she's just anxious. She's got crazy loans from med school and even if I'm doing okay now, it's not a steady salary. She worries about our future." Nicole picked at one of the bolts holding the chair together, fidgeting like a child hauled into the principal's office.

"As a doctor, she should know that stress isn't good for her."

"Yeah, yeah. We usually just don't talk about it. I know that's not healthy either. But when we do talk about it, we fight about it." She threw her head back and growled. "Why are relationships hard? Don't answer that."

"I won't... if you tell me your opinion on social media obligations."

Nicole groaned and laughed, and leaned back in her seat again. "You're the worst, Dolls."

* * *

Shae apologized with a home-cooked meal and kisses, and Nicole folded like a bad poker hand. 

They laid in bed afterward, Shae cocooned under the crook of Nicole's arm, Nicole's fingers running through Shae's hair. One of Waverly's videos played on the laptop that was burning Nicole's thighs.

"She's so hot," Shae said, laughing into Nicole's neck. "I fucking love her, I can't believe you're going to be working with her."

"I guess she's pretty," said Nicole, glad that YouTube only showed total views for its videos and not how many views she'd personally contributed.

"Are you jealous?" Shae nipped Nicole's earlobe, then pressed a kiss to the corner of her jaw, and a shiver raced down Nicole's spine. "I think that should be my thing."

"First of all, I've got no reason to be jealous because you're in my bed, not hers." Nicole let her eyes trace down their bodies, naked all the way down to where a flat sheet draped over their hips like something out of a renaissance painting. "Second, you've got no reason to be jealous because of the bed I just mentioned. She's also got a terrible boyfriend."

Shae dangled her fingers over Nicole's stomach, brushing the trail of peach fuzz there against the grain. "Oh, god, you're right. The guy who looks like a fully-grown Justin Bieber."

"That's the one. I hope I don't have to meet him; he seems like a complete manchild." Nicole tipped herself toward Shae, pressing her cheek against Shae's head. "I think I'm just now realizing that I have to go to L.A. for a while."

"Lucky. I'd give my left foot to live somewhere like L.A."

Nicole leaned away at that, brows furrowed. "Really?"

"Yeah." Shae sat up, letting Nicole flop back onto the bed. "You knew that, right? I only came here because of the fellowship. We definitely talked about this."

"No, we definitely didn't." Nicole tried to pull the sheet up to her chest, but something had it pinned and she settled for folding her arms across herself. "So when your fellowship ends... what then? You're gone?"

Nicole tipped her head, searching for Shae's eyes, but they danced away each time. Finally, she made eye contact; Shae winced. "No! Maybe. I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"Because I haven't figured out what you want yet." Shae turned away, hiding her face with the angle of her body.

"You don't have to figure anything out. I'm right here; you can ask me."

Air seeped out of Shae's lungs. "Nicole, you don't even know what you want."

"I—"

"We've been together almost three years and we live in separate apartments." Shae gestured at the room, at the hand-me-down furniture and college leftovers arranged as neatly as possible. Everything was Nicole's save for a shirt or two in the drawers and the clothes strewn on the rug.

"So? You have a key, we still see each other every time it's possible. Our schedules are just so crazy that—"

"We'd see each other more if we slept in the same bed every night."

"But I—"

"I just don't know if you're as... committed to this as I am. If you care as much." Shae broke eye contact again, sagging under the weight of her own words.

With every one of those words, the pit in Nicole's stomach widened; she was in freefall, with nothing but air beneath her. "Of course I care. How can you say that?"

When Shae's eyes slid to the top drawer of Nicole's nightstand, Nicole's freefall became a collision; every muscle seemed to seize, every breath burned on the way down. "Just a feeling, I guess," said Shae.

"I'm... I'm sorry I made you feel that way. I never meant to..." Nicole forced her rusted jaw to move, forced her swollen tongue to form words. "I'm sorry. I love you. I want to make this work." She laid her fingers on Shae's wrist, as though her touch might ease Shae's grip on the sheet beneath her.

"I know." Shae peeled herself away from the bed and from Nicole's touch, padding across the room to where her clothes had landed earlier. As she pulled her shirt over her head, she said, "maybe this L.A. trip will be good."

Nicole had gotten to her feet, too, standing stock still and naked in the middle of the room. She didn't remember rising to her feet, only remembered feeling vulnerable, curled in her bed alone. "What do you mean?"

"I always thought, when it came time for me to leave here, that would be it for us. You like this place too much. You like the awful cold and the gray sky and the mountains right where you can see them. But maybe... maybe you'll go to L.A. and spend time making music with WAVES and her terrible boyfriend, and..."

Shae's voice shook like the last unshed leaf in a stiff autumn breeze. "And you'll think about what you want. If you want me enough to follow me or not."

"Shae," said Nicole, and she reached for Shae's arm, but Shae slipped away. Nicole let her hand fall.

"Call me when you get back from L.A.," said Shae. "And think about it. Until then, give me some space."

"'Space'? What does 'space' mean?"

"I'll see you after your trip." Shae leaned in and brushed a kiss against Nicole's lips, as soft as a whispering breeze.

Nicole refused to return it. "That's weeks away. I can't talk to you for weeks? Are you breaking up with me?" The pitch of her voice rose with every syllable, and she hated herself for it.

"I'm not." Shae cupped Nicole's cheek. "I promise. This isn't a break up. I won't see anyone else and you won't, either. It's just time away. Time to think. Okay?" Her thumb caressed Nicole's lips, then pulled away.

Nicole let the tips of her fingers brush the hem of Shae's shirt. "Okay. Okay." Maybe saying it twice would make it true.

Shae paused in the doorway, steadying herself against the doorjamb. "I love you," she said.

Nicole shivered. "I love you, too."

When Shae was gone, and the door was locked, Nicole dressed and put on a kettle. She dropped a gauzy tea bag into a mug. The kettle whistled, the tea steeped.

Tendrils of steam snaked toward the ceiling, unfurling like the tension in Nicole's gut. Nicole slid to the floor, leaned against the cabinets, and cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand there's the conflict.
> 
> I know this chapter is light on Waverly and heavy on Shae, but I hope it's entertaining enough to get you to next week! Conflict is fun, right? Right??
> 
> Next week: face to face.
> 
> Catch me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	3. Chapter 3

Nicole got on the plane to LA after a few weeks of radio silence from Shae, intermittent texts from Waverly, and a long argument with Dolls over who got the aisle seat.

Dolls won, and Nicole origami-folded herself into her seat and pressed her forehead to the wall of the cabin. She watched out the window as the land shrank beneath them. Before boarding, she'd scrounged up every ounce of confidence and excitement she had. Those hard-earned emotions shrank with the cars and trees and houses below them. Nervousness permeated her instead, juddering in her stomach like the turbulence rocking the plane.

By the time they landed, anxiety prickled over Nicole's skin like a swarm of beetles. Her sweater felt oppressive; she stripped it off, but the cool air needled her more.

They passed customs and security, and Dolls spotted a man holding a sign with "HAUGHT" scrawled in thick strokes.

"This feels like a movie," said Nicole. Dolls had no chance to respond before the driver stepped toward them. He seemed out of place, even in the melting pot of LAX. He wore what Nicole imagined a driver might wear: black slacks, a white shirt, a black tie. But the slacks were loose and in need of ironing, he picked at the tie as though it choked him, and he covered everything with a beat-up black field jacket.

"Miss Haught?"

"Nicole is fine."

He gripped her hand and shook it, and she met the force of it with a straight face. That earned her half a smile, hidden under a graying mustache.

"Randy Nedley. Nedley is fine. I'll be your driver while you're in town."

"Our own driver?" whisper-shouted Nicole to Dolls, as Nedley walked away with her suitcase. Dolls only shrugged.

Nedley bundled them and their luggage into a nondescript black car. New-car, fresh-leather smell suffused the cabin. The highway stretched out beyond them and to either side, more lanes than Nicole had ever seen.

"So, Nedley," said Dolls, after several minutes' silent driving, "are you from Los Angeles?"

"Nope, Canada."

"No way," said Nicole. "Nice to meet another Canadian down here. How did you end up working for Waverly?"

Nedley glanced at Nicole in his rear-view mirror, his heavy eyebrows sinking as he squinted. "I've known Waverly Earp since she was a tiny little thing."

"And now you're her driver?"

"That's a long story."

"We've got time," said Nicole; the GPS insisted they'd be driving a while before they reached their hotel.

"It's a long story," said Nedley again, turning his eyes back to the road.

Nicole sank back into her seat. She watched cars zip past them. A handful of conversations bubbled from her and from Dolls, but each one petered out in the oppressive silence of Randy Nedley.

Bags in hand, he ushered them into the hotel when they arrived, hovered behind them as they checked in, and lingered in the doorway as they stumbled slack-jawed into their suite.

"Dolls," said Nicole, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"Haught," said Dolls, looking much the same.

When Dolls had told her that WAVES' team had booked them a suite, Nicole had expected something similar to that one ill-advised road trip she'd taken with a gaggle of friends as a young college student. A modest living room, maybe a kitchenette, with a bedroom to either side.

Instead, she stood dwarfed in a two-story room. Glass panels stretched from floor to ceiling, flooding the room with sun. A waterfall churned against one wall, and a bar took up another. A couch big enough for twenty people sat in the center of the room facing a massive television.

Nedley cleared his throat behind them. "Is it okay if I just leave these here?"

The only response to his question was a simultaneous "huh?" and "what?"

"Your bags," said Nedley, with some combination of sigh and growl. "You got 'em from here?"

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, we're fine. Thanks, Nedley." Nicole hurried toward him, fishing a tip from her wallet. Nedley waved her off, handed her a business card, and bid them goodbye.

"There's a hot tub," said Dolls, returning from a foray into the adjoining rooms. He looked over the couch. "That's biggest TV I've ever seen."

"It's perfect. You can catch up on the Kardashians."

"Ha." Dolls' mouth remained a firm line. "This is over the top."

"Yeah." Nicole wandered away, staring through the wall of windows at a sky so blue her mind refused to accept it as real. "Shae would love it, though."

She heard the telltale thump of Dolls flopping onto the enormous leather sofa. "But you don't."

"I like my cozy little apartment." She turned from the window and sank into the couch around the corner from Dolls. The leather, hot from the sun, seared her bare arms. She crossed them over her chest. "But that'll never be enough for her."

She let her head fall back and stared at the ceiling where—of course—a complicated, modernist chandelier hung. "But that's what this trip is for, right? A trial run. For when Shae finishes her fellowship and moves someplace like this and I follow her."

Dolls' disagreement was palpable. "This trip is for you to work with WAVES and get your voice on a single and drum up enough interest to go on tour."

Nicole groaned. "Okay, agent-Dolls. But I want to know what friend-Dolls thinks."

Silence met her request, and when she lifted her head to study him, she found him regarding her right back. "I think," he said, delivering the words as though balancing the apex of a house of cards, "that Shae is a good person and a good doctor. But you want different things."

"We want a lot of the same things, too," said Nicole, instantly frustrated at the goddamn _pout_ she heard in her voice. "More than we want different things."

"Sure, but..." Dolls leaned forward on his elbows. "It's not about more or less if the stuff you disagree on is the stuff that really matters."

"Does where I live really matter that much, though? It's just a place."

Dolls shrugged. "What about the money stuff?"

"She worries!"

"Like she's your mom, not your partner." He cut off the retort building on Nicole's lips. "You asked for my thoughts. I'm being honest. Maybe you'll work it out, and I'll be happy for you. But you need to think about more than just forcing it. Think about what you really want. _You_ , not Shae. All right?" He didn't lean toward her, didn't reach for her, just sat on the couch and watched her think.

The sigh that escaped her left her heavy and cold. "Yeah, okay."

* * *

Waverly's assistant, Jeremy, met them in the lobby of the recording studio. Nicole saw him first in the reflection of the giant, mirror-finish letters on the wall spelling out the name of the record label.

"You must be Nicole Haught," said Jeremy, as Nicole turned to face him. He shook her hand with the cadence of a rabbit's heartbeat. "And... Xavier Dolls?"

Nicole and Jeremy both winced at the handshake that followed that introduction. Shaking the life back into his fingers, Jeremy led them through double doors to a long, glossy hallway. He prattled as they rode the elevator, as they stepped out, and as he ushered them into a meeting room.

"...and that's how Waverly got her nickname—"

The nickname would have to wait. As soon as they stepped into the room, Waverly Earp shouted, "you're here!"

She flew toward Nicole. Nicole, in a panic, shifted her guitar case to her shoulder and stuck her hand into the shrinking space between them. "Hi, I'm Nicole Haught!"

Dolls snorted. Waverly didn't seem to notice, but took Nicole's hand in her own and gave it a single firm shake. "And I'm Bond," she said in a mock-deep voice, her face crinkling with the strain of it. "James Bond."

Then her expression cracked and she laughed. "Sorry, sorry, that was a bad joke. I'm a little nervous. I'm Waverly. You probably already know that, though."

"Yeah, but I unnecessarily introduced myself first." Nicole shrugged and smiled. "So we're even." She introduced Dolls, who spared something resembling a smile for Waverly, and then Waverly was off to the races.

"Do you want a tour?" she asked, "or do you just want to get started? Is there paperwork you need to sign?"

"Mr. Chetri and I will handle all of that," said Dolls. "Haught, will you be all right with Miss Earp?"

"She's in good hands," said Waverly. She reached toward Nicole's arm, hesitated, and plucked at Nicole's sleeve. "Come on, there's a room I really like to write in when I'm here, but we've got to claim it before someone else does."

Exchanging a last look with Dolls—who looked either pitying or amused, she wasn't sure—Nicole followed Waverly out of the room. They headed up several more floors, and a smile spread across Nicole's cheeks when Waverly gave a little whoop of joy upon finding her room of choice unoccupied.

"Are floor-to-ceiling windows standard in L.A.?" asked Nicole. The city sprawled beneath them; standing at the edge, she could almost imagine she was flying.

A laugh bubbled from Waverly beside her. "Definitely not. You should have seen my first dingy apartment here."

"The one with the old couch?"

"You listened to that song?" Waverly's eyebrows jumped. "That never got any radio play."

Nicole shrugged, slipping her hands into her pockets. "I think I've listened to everything you've ever released since you called me."

"I'm flattered," said Waverly, with a smile that could melt glaciers. "Honestly, I did the same with yours even before we talked."

"Oh. Yeah? Cool." The surprise knocked Nicole's words out from behind her teeth. They stared at each other; seconds stretched into hours around them. When the skin on the back of her neck began to crawl, Nicole waggled her hands in a gesture meant to indicate that they should sit.

"So tell me about this song," said Nicole, cutting through the tension she'd created between them. She settled into the couch facing the windows; Waverly curled up in an armchair across from her, silhouetted by California sun.

Waverly pulled a face. "My ideas are still really rough."

"That's fine, just catch me up and we'll go from there."

"Okay, well... I didn't mean to, but a lot of the other songs on the album are about self-discovery." As Waverly spoke, Nicole watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "So I thought, might as well keep going with that theme. Because I have you as a guest artist, I think the most natural thing is for it to be two people realizing how they feel about each other."

"So it's a love song?"

"Maybe?"

Nicole laughed. "It sounds like a love song to me."

"Hear me out, though. There's a lot of feelings people can have about each other, right? They don't have to be good feelings. Maybe it's a relationship that's ending—"

Nicole winced, but Waverly kept going.

"—or maybe one person is falling for the other, and the other one is oblivious, or not interested, or maybe they're friends who are afraid of trying for something more."

"I think I'm following. If I get a veto, though, no breakup songs."

"You have as many vetoes as you want. It might be my album but I want to be co-writers on this. Fifty-fifty, right down the middle." Shifting in her seat, Waverly picked at the edge of her shirt and eyed Nicole like a mouse tiptoeing past a sleeping cat. "Um, so, if you don't mind my asking... why no breakup songs?"

A sigh escaped Nicole's lips before she could catch it, and she leaned her head against her propped-up fist. "It's a long story. Basically, that's not the kind of song I want my girlfriend to hear right now."

"Okay, I totally get it. I'd say I'd be happy to listen if you want to talk, but we literally just met and I don't want to make it weird."

"I appreciate it. I mean that, okay? Not just saying it. But since you got to ask a question, my turn. Do you really want this to be a relationship song?"

Waverly blinked, then her brows furrowed, matching the question on her lips. "Yeah, why?"

"It's just that..." Nicole crossed her arms and shrugged, looking at the sky behind Waverly. "We're both women. So that gives it a different context. And I know you're an ally. But you writing a song with a voice that isn't yours... I'll be honest, it makes me a little uncomfortable."

Nicole finally let her eyes fall to Waverly's. Whatever Waverly saw in them, it made her draw a sudden, slicing breath.

"Oh," said Waverly, her face crumpling.

Nicole stammered. "I mean, the song isn't written yet, right?" She leaned forward in aborted reach toward Waverly, her hands clawing at the air as though she might grab Waverly to comfort her or shock her back to her cheerful self. "If you're careful, it could be fine. I just want to make sure you've really thought about it."

"Yeah, I, um..." Waverly unfolded herself, setting her feet on the floor, sitting properly for the first time. She wrung her hands. "I have thought about it. A lot, actually. And I guess I haven't been totally honest. But I don't want to talk about this here. Can I take you to lunch?"

"Sure," said Nicole. "Sorry, but... are you okay?"

"I will be," said Waverly, forcing a smile through the haze clouding her expression. It faltered and died on her lips. "I just really need to get out of this building."

She stood and headed for the door. Nicole watched her go without rising, the cogs of her mind trying to churn through the turn in their conversation.

Waverly paused in the doorway, half in and half out. "Are you coming?" she asked. Her smile returned, small but real. "It'll be a little hard to have lunch with you if you don't come with me."

A smile to match Waverly's grew on Nicole's face. "I'm right behind you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter Waverly, finally!
> 
> I asked my wife yesterday which artist she thought Popstar!Waverly would be like and she told me Miley Cyrus and now I don't know what to think.
> 
> Next week: ugh, _Champ_.
> 
> Catch me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	4. Chapter 4

The restaurant, a French-style café, was small but popular, so Nicole and Waverly took the only available seats at the counter. They placed their orders; Nicole waited while Waverly avoided making eye contact.

"I don't bite, you know," said Nicole. She sipped her water and studied the light cast by her glass, the way it danced across Waverly's arms.

Waverly pushed her own glass away from her with one finger, letting it slide on the wooden countertop. "I know. I just haven't really told this to anyone who isn't my family."

"You don't have to." For the second time that day, Nicole's hand twitched with the instinct to reach out to Waverly, to make contact just long enough to be reassuring. She stifled the impulse and took another sip of water.

"I do, though, especially if you think I'm taking advantage or—or queerbaiting," said Waverly, spitting out the last word as if it were a hot coal burning through her tongue. "It wouldn't be fake. If we did a love song together. It couldn't be, because I'm... I like women."

Waverly finally met Nicole's eyes, and Nicole finally gave in to her impulses. She laid her hand on Waverly's, clasped it, and squeezed.

"Thanks for telling me," she said, and released Waverly's hand. "I'm sorry I assumed."

"Don't be sorry, you really didn't." With a sniff, Waverly reached for a napkin to blot her eyes. "I told people I was straight. Totally straight. Straight as an arrow. But I'm not. I'm really, really not."

"So I'm the only person who knows outside your family? The label, your agents... no one else?"

"Well, the woman who... er... helped me figure it out knows." Waverly turned as red as a beet. "But other than that... yes. I think maybe this song could be how I come out to everyone. It's already helping, right? I came out to you."

Their food came and sat unattended. Waverly's eyes had dried, but she'd crumpled her napkin beyond usefulness.

"Is that why you wanted me for the song?" asked Nicole.

"Yes and no. Yes, because I wanted someone..."

"Gay?" Nicole laughed around the word.

A sheepish smile blossomed on Waverly's face, and with it, the tension in her body dissipated. "Yes, gay. But I also really like your music. It seemed like it was meant to be."

"Maybe it was," said Nicole. She leaned toward Waverly and nudged her with her elbow. "And you know, if you ever have any questions or you just want to talk, I'm a good listener."

"I think we're going to be doing a lot of talking when we write this song together, don't you?"

Someone shouted behind them. "Oh my god, you're WAVES!"

They turned together to see a woman at another table wearing a wide smile, sitting across from an embarrassed-looking man.

"I love you," said the woman. She threw her hands over her mouth, nearly knocking her hat off her head in the process. "Oh my god. Can I take a picture with you?"

Waverly turned toward the interloper, mouthing an apology to Nicole. Nicole sat quietly, glancing from the woman to Waverly, from Waverly to her sandwich.

"I'm actually having a private lunch with my friend right now," said Waverly.

"It's fine," said Nicole.

"Please?" said the woman. She'd already risen from her seat, shoving her phone at her companion and hissing at him to take the photo.

Waverly shot a questioning glance at Nicole, who shrugged. Nicole turned back to her lunch and tucked into her sandwich, letting the woman's excitement and Waverly's polite conversation fade into the background.

Then she felt fingers around her bicep, someone tugging her away from her plate.

"Hey," said Waverly. "Will you take a picture with me?"

"What for?" said Nicole, as she spun on her stool and leaned toward Waverly.

"Smile!" Waverly snapped the photo, still clinging to Nicole's arm. "I want something to remember this moment."

"What moment is that?"

"The start of our friendship."

Nicole blinked. "You want to be friends?"

"Yeah, I do," said Waverly, and her voice was as soft as silk. "That's not weird, is it?"

"Not weird at all," said Nicole. "I'd like to be friends, too." They smiled at the same time: a goofy grin on Nicole's face and a lopsided curl on Waverly's.

* * *

They finished lunch without any more interruptions and made their way back to the studio. As soon as they walked in, Jeremy sprang up from where he'd been chatting with the receptionist and hurried over to Waverly.

"Champ is here," he said, the only sign of his disgust a faint crease over the bridge of his nose. "He was looking for you."

"Oh boy." Waverly grimaced. "Is he in the usual place?"

"Yeah, but no entourage today." Jeremy's face contorted even more, the thought of Champ Hardy's entourage akin to spoiled milk.

"Small mercies," said Waverly. She turned to Nicole. "Would you like to meet him?"

 _No_ , thought Nicole, though she kept it from sneaking out. She hummed noncommittally instead.

Waverly wrung her hands. "I totally understand if you'd rather go back to your hotel. We can pick back up on the project tomorrow."

"It's fine," said Nicole. "I figured I'd end up meeting him sooner or later."

In the elevator, after leaving Jeremy alone with his disgust, Waverly let out a sigh like the ocean receding from the shore. They stood beside each other, watching each other in the mirrored doors. "I'm sorry," she said. "Today was supposed to be just us, no interruptions."

"Don't worry about it." Nicole longed for the security of a jacket, pockets deep enough to hide her fidgeting hands. She stuffed them in her shallow jeans pockets instead. "Does he know?"

Waverly stilled. Nicole stammered out her next question. "You said your family knows, is Champ—"

"Oh, no. No. He's just my boyfriend. Not family. He doesn't. Know, that is. He doesn't know."

"Your secret's safe with me." Nicole's smile swam in the mirror, undulating with the warping of the the glass.

"I know," said Waverly, meeting the reflection of Nicole's eyes. "I trust you."

* * *

They found Champ in one of the control rooms, slouched in a chair and talking to one of his producers. He drowned in his clothes: a baggy t-shirt that probably cost him hundreds of dollars, shorts flowing down to his knees, shoes with half the velcro straps undone. When he caught sight of Waverly, he sat up a tiny bit straighter, opened his arms wide, and patted his lap. 

"Champ, this is Nicole Haught. Nicole, this is my boyfriend Champ." She crossed the room to Champ, bent over to peck him on the lips, and yelped when he grabbed her and pulled her down onto the seat with him. Her skirt rode up; she tried to fix it but his palm slid up her leg and blocked it like a boulder breaking the surf.

"Nice to meet you." Nicole shook Champ's free hand; as they pulled away, he shook out his fingers with a wince.

Waverly offered the other man in the room a genuine smile. "And this is John Henry Holliday, a producer. He works with Champ a lot."

"Most folks call me Doc." The man in question offered a firm but less painful handshake.

"Doc Holliday?" said Nicole.

"A jest from my younger days, one that I have never quite been able to shake."

She gave him a once over: long hair, a woolly caterpillar over his lip, ease in his hips. "It suits you," she said. 

"So I have been told. Mr. Hardy, I expect to see you here tomorrow with a little more thought about your new album."

"Yeah, yeah. See you, Doc." Champ waved the other man out of the room and turned his attention to Nicole. He spun back and forth in his chair. 

"So you're the chick Waverly's doing a song with? Waves didn't tell me you're hot."

"Champ!" Waverly shoved him in the chest; as she was balanced on his lap like a wobbling top, she nearly fell off. He tightened his grip on her with one hand and straightened his floppy hair with the other.

"Sorry, babe. She's just okay looking." Over Waverly's shoulder, he winked at Nicole. She was sure her expression resembled Jeremy's.

Waverly tried to stand up, but he clung to her. She settled for shoving him again. "That's not better! You can't just comment on people like that."

"Sure, whatever you want. You're the only girl for me." His fingers pressed into her thigh, just beneath the hem of her skirt, and her skin went white under his touch.

"That's not the... never mind." Waverly sighed. "What did you want to see me about?" 

He kissed her on the cheek. "You wanna go get lunch together?"

"Oh, I already went out to lunch with Nicole."

"You didn't invite me?" 

Nicole wanted to slap him; she imagined her hand meeting his cheek, his cartoonish dismay.

"Do I have to invite you to everything?" said Waverly, her scowl carving deep tracks in her cheeks.

"Uh, considering I'm your boyfriend, yeah."

"Just because you're my boyfriend doesn't mean you're entitled to my time!"

Nicole returned her hands to her pockets and rocked on her heels. Their bickering threatened to spill over into a full-blown fight; it brought the memory of her last fight with Shae to mind. "Hey," she said, and both of them turned to her, Champ with annoyance and Waverly with embarrassment. "I'm gonna go find my agent and get going. It was nice to meet you both." She started to back out of the room.

"Wait!" Waverly squirmed and broke free of Champ's grasp. "Let me walk you out."

Nicole figured she ought to politely demur, to insist she'd be all right on her own, but Champ looked like a toddler whose favorite toy had been taken away by a stern parent. She found she just didn't have it in her to do anything that might make Champ Hardy happy.

They left him to sulk.

"You don't have to go," said Waverly, when they were out of his earshot. She jogged to keep up with Nicole's long strides. "I'll tell him to buzz off and we can keep working on our song."

"It's fine." Nicole's footsteps echoed in the cavernous hallway. "I want to go."

"Oh." Waverly's tread fell silent behind Nicole; Nicole pulled up short.

"Not like that. I just..." She turned to face Waverly, hands on her hips. The sigh that escaped her was as heavy and hot as fresh smoke. "I guess if you could tell me about you, I can tell you about me. My girlfriend and I are going through some stuff. I guess we're on a break or a pause or something."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. We have stuff we need to work on." Nicole's eyes flitted over Waverly's shoulder, toward the room they'd fled. "Clearly you and Champ do, too."

"We're... he's..." Waverly's hands fluttered as she sought an explanation.

"I get it," said Nicole. "It just hit a bit close to home. I promise I'll get better about it going forward. But right now all I want to do is go back to my hotel room, put on some sad songs, and sulk a bit."

"Okay." Waverly offered her a smile, then stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, her arms tight around Nicole's waist. "I hope you feel better. And it sounds like maybe between the two of us, we have something to write a song about."

Nicole smiled, draping both arms around Waverly's shoulders. "Yeah, maybe." She pulled away. "Thanks for the hug and the pep talk. And no, before you worry, you didn't make things weird."

"Why would it be weird?" Waverly grinned up at her. "We're friends now, aren't we?"

* * *

When Waverly returned Nicole to Dolls with the promise to really start working the next day, Dolls gave Nicole a look that she was sure meant she was headed for an interrogation. Once they were out of the building and safely bundled into Nedley's car, he confirmed her suspicion.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," said Nicole. "Why would you think I did something?"

"Because I can't imagine Waverly Earp doing something to make you run out of there like the building was on fire."

"We were both smiling when we left, if you didn't notice," said Nicole, with a huff.

"Oh, I noticed," said Dolls, under his breath. "Come on, Haught. What happened?"

"Champ Hardy happened."

"I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, me too." Nicole leaned against the window. "He's a complete asshole. It blows my mind that Waverly's dating a guy like that."

"You're not the only one. They get fewer 'hashtag goals' comments on their social media than other celebrity couples."

"I never should have put you in charge of my Instagram," muttered Nicole. "Long story short, he got weird and possessive, they started fighting, and I wanted to be literally anywhere else."

"I don't blame you. You're probably going to have to learn to be around him, though."

Nicole ground her teeth. "I know. I'll deal."

When they got back to the hotel suite, Nicole excused herself and barricaded herself in her room. As she lounged on her bed and searched through her phone for sad, twangy country music to accompany her planned sulk, she got a message.

Waverly had sent her the photo of the two of them at the restaurant. Even on the small screen of her phone, Waverly's smile was blinding. Nicole wondered if she'd ever looked that happy in her life.

Before her brain could catch up to her fingers, Nicole sent the picture to Shae.

Panic seeped into her. Her stomach lurched as if squeezed by an enormous fist. Leaping upright in bed, she pulled up Shae's number, her finger hovering over the call button. She drew in a breath that fought her all the way down.

Before she could decide what to do, her phone lit up with Shae's name and photo. Nicole answered the call.

"It was an accident," said Nicole, cutting off whatever Shae had been about to say.

"You sent me a picture by accident?"

"Yup."

"Okay."

"I understand if you're mad." Nicole's voice shook like the last autumn leaf clinging to its branch, "but I swear, it wasn't deliberate. I just... couldn't help it."

In the silence that followed, Nicole counted and lost track of her heartbeats. 

"It's okay," said Shae, and the blood rushed back to Nicole's face. The roof of her mouth throbbed with it. "I'm glad you sent it to me."

Nicole noticed that she was standing. She sank onto the foot of the bed. "You are?"

"Yeah. You look cute."

The ice in Nicole's veins began to melt. "I look like an awkward teenager next to Waverly Earp."

"Okay, sure. But if I put my thumb over WAVES..." Nicole imagined Shae pulling the phone from her ear and blocking Waverly from view. "I can confirm, you're extremely cute. That plaid shirt looks good on you."

Nicole chuckled. "You bought it for me."

"I have good taste."

"You definitely do."

The conversation dwindled, as though the thread that bound them together had gone slack. "I miss you," said Nicole.

"I miss you too. But I still need time."

"Oh. I'll hang up."

"No... don't. Time can start after this. Is that okay?"

Nicole wanted to say it wasn't. That it felt a lot like being jerked around. That Shae couldn't have her cake and eat it too. She said, "yeah. I like hearing your voice."

"Me too," said Shae, and the line slackened again. Neither spoke, just sat and waited for the other to speak.

"How's L.A.?" asked Shae.

"It's fine." Nicole got up and walked to the window, opening the curtains she'd dramatically closed in a fit of pique earlier. "It's very sunny."

Shae laughed. "That's a good thing."

"I guess," said Nicole. "It's so different from home."

"You don't like it!"

"No! Well, I don't not like it. But I'm not sure I like it, either. It's only been two days!" she protested, to the growing silence on the other end of the line that suddenly threatened to rip the ground out from under her.

"Is WAVES as nice as she seems?" said Shae at last.

Nicole leaned her forehead on the window, wondering if the people below could see her. "Nicer. She's super friendly. I met Champ, too. I wish you could've been there. You would've hated him."

"Part of me hopes I'll never meet him, and part of me hopes someday I will just for the show."

"I can almost guarantee he'll make a spectacle of himself. He was pawing at Waverly today. I wanted to vomit. She looked so embarrassed."

"Sometimes I just don't get straight romance."

Though the sun was dipping lower in the sky, for a moment Nicole's hotel room seemed filled with noonday light and the sounds of utensils clinking on china plates. "I don't think gay or straight has anything to do with it. There are plenty of unhappy gay couples."

"Like us?"

The mirage of the little French café disappeared, leaving Nicole alone in her hotel room. She pulled the curtains back over the window. "I didn't say that."

"You implied it." 

Nicole pressed the heel of her palm to her temple and fought back an annoyed growl. "Can we not do this? We were having a nice conversation."

"You brought it up!"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Then why even make that comment?"

It was all Nicole could do not to throw her phone across the room. Gripping it in her hand like a hawk clutching its kill, she drew it away from her ear and took several deep breaths. "If you just want to fight, I'm going to hang up."

"Fine, if you're going to be like that. I'll see you when you come home, Haught. Don't call me until then."

"I won't."

"Good."

They waited. Nicole rolled an "I love you" on her tongue like an unfamiliar whiskey before gulping it down.

"Go out and see the city," said Shae, snapping the silence. "Maybe Waverly can take you around. Make friends. Meet people. Give it a real try. Okay? Don't just half-ass it because you're mad at me."

"Okay," said Nicole. "I'll... I'll ask her. I promise."

"You better, Nicole." 

Shae hung up. Nicole stared at her phone for a while, before setting it face down on her dresser and making her way back to the common room.

"Dolls?" she called, and the TV changed channels quickly; she thought she saw Khloé Kardashian before it switched to a sports channel.

"What's up?" he asked. "Everything okay?"

"Just peachy. Everything is fine. Great, even. Fantastic." she said. "Completely unrelated to that, how would you feel about making a beer run?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the cameo, Doc! This is the last time we'll see him. I like him, but I didn't really have a spot for him in this story.
> 
> I hope that whatever day you're reading this, you're having a good day! I had to call out of work sick today, so at the very least I hope you're better off than I am right now.
> 
> Next: a friendly outing.
> 
> Catch me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	5. Chapter 5

When Nicole arrived at the studio the next day, Waverly met her with a coffee and a smile.

"No interruptions today," she said. "Just you, me, and our song. I promise."

Nicole accepted the coffee with a grin of her own. "Sounds perfect."

They settled in Waverly's favorite room. "How do you like to write?" asked Waverly, as Nicole set her gig bag on the couch. "Lyrics first? Melody?"

"Depends on the song. For this one, I think we have to start with the lyrics." Nicole opened the front pocket of her guitar bag and fished out a notepad.

"And why's that?" Waverly settled into what seemed to be her favorite chair, and picked up her own notebook.

"Like you said yesterday, I think we found our inspiration. Frustrating relationships."

"Yeah? You're okay with that?" Waverly's eyes followed Nicole as she settled onto the couch.

"Completely. After last night, I need to get everything out."

"Did something happen?"

Nicole took a deep draft of her coffee. She clapped the cup onto the table hard enough to spill. "What didn't happen? Shae called, and if we weren't on a break before, we definitely are now. I'm not sure why we didn't just break up for good, she was that mad at me."

"Because you love her," said Waverly. She crossed her arms over her notebook, pressing it to her chest. "It's pretty obvious."

"Yeah." Nicole's knee bobbed, rattling her pen against her notepad. "I do. And she loves me. I know she does. Which is why it's so frustrating that we just can't get our act together."

"She's lucky to have you."

Nicole's eyes jumped to Waverly's, growing wider as her cheeks caught fire.

"I just mean..." Waverly set her notepad in her lap and splayed her hands over it. "I met you literally yesterday and you've been so kind to me. You didn't have to... to listen to me like that. Most people wouldn't. You're a good person. Anyone would be lucky to have you."

"That's... that's really kind of you to say. Thank you," said Nicole. She squirmed, feeling as exposed as if she'd gone streaking down Hollywood Boulevard.

Waverly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, suddenly unable to hold eye contact. "I meant every word of it. Anyway, um, have you written a song with anyone before?"

"Can't say I have. I'll follow your lead."

"Sure, so, I think it helps if we both start brainstorming on our own. Then we can talk about our favorite ideas and see where that takes us." She pulled out her phone. "Total silence until the timer goes off, okay?"

As soon as Waverly started the timer, Nicole started scribbling. She glanced up to see Waverly curled over her own notepad, making some kind of bubble diagram. Waverly looked up and caught Nicole watching. She shook her head and pressed a quieting finger to her lips.

They each returned to their work. Nicole looked up again, but Waverly was studiously expanding her diagram. When Nicole's attention fell back to her own notebook, she missed Waverly spying on her a moment later.

The timer went off and Waverly rounded the table to sit next to Nicole, their knees knocking. They laid their ideas next to each other: Nicole's free-form, margins-filled list and Waverly's mind map. Waverly started gesturing between them, running her finger over Nicole's first rough ideas.

"Really getting those feelings out, huh?" she said, pointing to the edge of the paper where Nicole had scribbled, _why can't relationships just be EASY?_

"I just keep thinking it. It hasn't been easy. I don't even know if it should be."

"I think it should." Waverly crossed to the whiteboard on the far wall and lifted herself on her toes to write _why can't this just be easy_ at the top of the board. 

Nicole took another marker. "I can honestly say I've never had an easy relationship. There's always been something to mess it up. Have you?"

"Had an easy relationship?"

Nicole nodded.

Waverly tapped her marker against her chin. "Champ was easy in the beginning. I guess it was barely a relationship, then. We were just... well, you know. When it started getting serious it started getting difficult."

Nicole scribbled a few lines about beginnings and time and youth, then appended a few anxious question marks for good measure. "I'll be honest, Champ doesn't strike me as the serious type."

When a frown pulled at the corners of Waverly's lips, Nicole gulped. "Sorry."

"You really didn't like him."

Nicole wrinkled her nose. "No, I didn't, but my opinion of Champ Hardy isn't important. If you like him, that's all that matters."

"Tell my sister that. She can't stand him. Of course, she's convinced I don't actually like him, either. I'm not sure she's wrong, but hell will freeze over before I tell Wynonna she's right about anything."

Nicole perched on the arm of the couch, turning her marker over in her hands. "Sorry if this is overstepping, but you don't like your boyfriend? That's the worst."

"No, I like him. I mean, I don't not like him. I mean—"

"Still sounds like the worst."

"It's not the best, that's for sure." Waverly crossed her arms, rubbing her skin as if she were cold. "Sometimes I think the only reason I'm still with him is that people will freak out if we break up. I don't want that distraction right now."

"People are going to freak out more the longer you're together."

"I know. Trust me, I know. It isn't the right time yet."

"Okay." Nicole wanted to say, _you deserve someone who cares about you_ , wanted to say, _you are so much better than him_. "So... before we get back to work, I promised Shae I'd ask you something."

Waverly groaned. "Oh god. That question never ends well."

"It's not your autograph, I promise." Nicole held up her hands, warding off Waverly's annoyance. "She wants me to go out and get familiar with L.A. My homework is to ask you to show me around, I guess. Help me fall in love with this place in case we move here someday. Or at least in like."

"Not a fan of the big city?" Waverly's eyes crinkled as she laughed. Nicole shrugged.

"What can I say? I'm a country girl."

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but..." Waverly crossed her hands behind her back and leaned in, smirking like a teenager who'd gotten away with a nighttime excursion. "Me too. I only live here because I have to."

"Then teach me how to tolerate it? Or point me to someone who can?"

Excitement danced in Waverly's eyes. "All right, I'll make you a deal. If you let me choose the things we do and let me surprise you, I'll do my best to help you like L.A."

She stuck out her hand, wiggling her fingers.

"One condition," said Nicole. Her hand hovered just out of Waverly's reach. "No Champ."

"You don't have to worry about that. No Champ."

Their hands met and Nicole gave Waverly's a firm shake. "All right then, Miss Earp. Looks like we've got ourselves a deal."

* * *

They made good progress on their song, though some of the lyrics still made Nicole grimace. She'd taken a copy back to the hotel room to stew over while Waverly was stuck in a series of boring-sounding meetings the following day.

Around mid-afternoon, she got a text.

 **Waverly:** hey I got out early. Do you want to start your LA education?

 **Nicole:** Sure, count me in

 **Waverly:** great! I'll send Nedley to pick you up. Wear comfy clothes!

So Nedley found Nicole at the designated time, jogging out of the hotel lobby in a loose striped t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers.

"So what is this all about?" he asked, his eyes just visible beneath his eyebrows in the mirror. "Miss Earp just told me to pick you up and bring you to a 'secret location.' Her words."

"She's showing me around the city," said Nicole. "I might end up moving here. Wanted someone to show me the good things about this place."

"I'm not sure you picked the best teacher for that," he said, chuckling.

"You've known her since she was little, right?"

"That I have." He kept his eyes on the road, but as he spoke, they softened; if Nicole didn't know any better, she'd have said he was glowing.

"What's your hometown like? I'm from Calgary. Folks around the area call it the city, but compared to this it's a one-horse town."

"No kiddin'? We're from a little place called Purgatory, not too far from there. You want to talk about one-horse towns, it's the closest you're gonna get."

Their eyes met again in the mirror; they smiled like they shared a secret.

"Sounds charming."

"It can be. Certainly gets rosier the longer I stay in this place." His hands flexed on the steering wheel.

She let her smile grow, feeling suddenly at home with her fellow fish out of water. "Not a fan of your new home?"

"It's just not my kind of place. No offense to the folks who do love it, of course. But goddamn, I miss my hometown."

"I hear you. I've been here three days and I can't wait to go back." They rolled past palm trees and blue skies and silence saturated the car.

When Nedley pulled up to a curb, Nicole laid her hand on the latch but left the door closed; he stared straight ahead but his jaw worked as though he were chewing through each word he wanted to say.

"I don't know what's got you so desperate to live here," he said, after a long while, "but there ain't nothing wrong with loving where you're from."

"Tell that to my girlfriend."

"Ah." His focus shifted, following the cars and people passing by outside. "Ain't that always the way?"

"The things we do for love, right?" A tall, brown-haired woman walked down the sidewalk past them. Nicole imagined Shae, her smile, her kiss. The image shifted: Shae frowning. Shae leaving.

"I suppose so," said Nedley, dragging her from her trance. They locked eyes in the mirror again. "Good luck, kid. Sounds like you're going to need it."

* * *

As she stepped out of the car, Nedley pulled away. Waverly was nowhere to be seen; Nicole shoved her hands into her pockets and watched the passersby. Nedley had brought her to a beach; white sand stretched toward the ocean on one side of her and an eclectic assortment of buildings lined the other.

"There you are!"

Nicole turned to find Waverly gliding toward her, sunglasses covering half her face, a top covering half her stomach and the shortest shorts Nicole had ever seen. Nicole cursed herself for neglecting to bring her own sunglasses; she did her best to keep her eyes trained on Waverly's megawatt smile and to quash the fluttering low in her stomach.

"I'm not sure I wore the right shoes," said Nicole, fighting through the sand to reach Waverly. "You look like you were born here."

"Thanks! Lesson number one, not having to have your feet trapped in shoes all the time is one of the best parts of living in L.A. Or anywhere warmer than Canada, I guess. Not that I mind shoes. I love shoes. But I do like that my options aren't limited to shoes or boots or thicker boots."

"No shoes. Okay, I can do that." Nicole crouched down and untied her sneakers, removed them, then tied the laces together and cast them over her shoulder. She stuffed her socks in a pocket. "Better?"

"Much! Ready for lesson number two?"

Wiggling her toes in the sand, Nicole grinned at Waverly. "Absolutely."

"Good, follow me."

Waverly led her along the beach, past gliding frisbees, tanning people, and more umbrellas than Nicole could count. She stopped at a cart on the border of the sand and the boardwalk and pulled a wallet from her purse. "Churro? Sorbet? Churro _and_ sorbet?"

"What are you getting?"

"Sorbet," said Waverly.

Nicole eyed the vendor as he handed a churro to someone in line ahead of them. "Are churros good?"

"You've never had one? You have to get one." Before Nicole could argue, Waverly stepped up to the cart and ordered a churro and two dishes of sorbet. She plopped one of the dishes in Nicole's left hand and the paper-wrapped churro in the other.

"I can pay for mine—"

"Nope, I've got this. You can get the next one." Waverly started back down the beach, toward the water; Nicole jogged to catch up.

"The next churro?" she asked, then took a bite of the current churro. "Oh, this is good."

"No, silly," Waverly laughed, reaching into her bag and pulling out a tightly-rolled towel. "The next thing that needs paying for. And isn't it? I know you can find them in other places but I'd never had one until I came here."

"L.A. perk number one," said Nicole, gesturing with her churro like a teacher with a pointer. "No shoes. Perk number two, churros."

"You're learning." Like a matador flourishing his cape, Waverly unrolled her towel one handed and let it flutter to the sand. It laid crumpled. "Aw, rats." Hands still full of snacks, they worked together to pull it flat.

The towel turned out to be more of a blanket, with ample room for both of them. Waverly sat with her knees curled beneath her, leaning toward Nicole; Nicole crisscrossed her legs.

"So what's the plan?" asked Nicole, who was making quick work of her churro.

"For now, eat and people watch," said Waverly. "Can I have a bite?"

"I thought you didn't want one?"

"I didn't want a _whole_ one."

"Oh, fine. I don't actually mind sharing." Nicole offered the churro to Waverly, who accepted it, took a bite, and handed it back. "Shae's very possessive of her food. Only child syndrome, I guess."

Waverly laughed as she took another scoop of her sorbet. "I'm the youngest and the littlest sister. I've had sharing forced on me since before I can remember. Joke's on them, though; I got the puppy-dog eyes."

"They're very effective." Nicole finished her churro and secured the paper wrapper under one of her shoes. She started in on her sorbet.

"Years of practice. Do you have siblings?"

"No, I'm an only child." Nicole grinned. "But unlike my girlfriend, _I_ turned out to be a generous soul."

"Ooh, you're terrible. Do you tease her like this in person? How does she stand you?"

Nicole's stomach roiled. "Can't say I know," she said, prodding at her sorbet. "Sorry, let's not talk about Shae. I shouldn't have brought her up."

"We can talk about it if you want."

"Thanks. I appreciate it, I really do. But I want to have fun today. Forget Shae, forget Champ, forget stressful relationships." She struggled to her feet, bent over, and offered Waverly a hand up. Waverly gripped her hand like a vice and hauled herself up next to Nicole.

For a moment, with their still-joined hands folded between them and the back of Nicole's hand brushing Waverly's shirt, Nicole's skin went cold. She stepped back, tucking her hair behind her ear and looking anywhere but at Waverly.

When she looked back, Waverly was smiling. "You're right," Waverly said. "No downer talk. We're going to have fun in the sun and get you excited to live here. So... on to activity number two!"

* * *

Activity number two turned out to be strolling along the beach and eventually the pier, people-watching. They leaned on the railings and played "tourist or local" and made up stories about secret identities and dramatic affairs.

The sun began to set. Nicole propped her elbows on the rails and stared out at the liquid bronze ocean.

"Hey," said Waverly; Nicole turned toward her, and Waverly sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, wow," she said. "Your hair looks amazing in this light."

Nicole ran her fingers through it, straightening locks that had been blown astray by the sea breeze.

"Don't." Waverly reached toward her and her fingertips just grazed Nicole's wrist before snapping back like a whip. "I, um, I was going to ask, would you mind if we go back to the beach? I love watching the sunset with my toes in the water."

"Not at all," said Nicole. "After you."

When they reached the beach, Waverly dropped her bag on the ground and waded into the surf. Its white tongue licked her ankles, then slipped away. "Come on," called Waverly, beckoning to Nicole.

Dropping her sneakers beside Waverly's purse, Nicole obliged. The water curled against her skin. A shiver ran up her legs, slid up her spine, and settled in a knot in the back of her neck.

Waverly sighed. "I love this. Perk number three. For me, anyway. Maybe it's not your thing."

"It's nice," said Nicole. "There aren't as many people down here now. I like it."

"Do you not like people?" Waverly's eyes never left the horizon.

"I like people just fine." Nicole stuck her hands in her pockets. "But there's a feeling when I'm out in the world alone... It's that feeling when I'm on top of a mountain or in the middle of the woods, nothing but me and nature. I feel outnumbered, but not in a bad way. I feel part of it all. Connected. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," said Waverly. "I know that feeling. It's hard to find here. That's why I like this." She wriggled her toes in the wet sand, and the ocean rushed in to smooth away her marks. "I'm not ruining it by being here?"

Nicole shook her head. "Some people ruin it. Strangers, mostly. But some people are a part of it. They're comforting. You're one of them."

"How can you tell? We barely know each other."

"Same reason you knew we'd be friends. Some people, you just know. Dolls is one. And believe it or not, I think your driver, Nedley, is one too."

"Oh, Randy," said Waverly. "He's a sweetheart. You have good taste."

They watched the sun drop lower, until it brushed the horizon. It started to melt, pouring over the waves and reaching toward the shore.

"Champ isn't one of those people for me," said Waverly. "My Aunt Gus is. Wynonna too. My sister's a pain in the ass but we could sit and hurl insults at each other all day and it'd feel more like praying than fighting. But Champ? Sometimes I don't know who I am with him. And I don't think he understands me. At all."

"How do you think he'll react when you tell him?"

"About me liking women?"

Nicole nodded, slowly.

"I don't know," said Waverly. "I'm not really looking forward to that conversation."

The sun had nearly vanished; the tiniest sliver peeked out over the horizon. Waverly rubbed her arms and sighed. "Maybe you and Wynonna are right. I mean, listen to me. My boyfriend doesn't understand me. What kind of relationship is that?" She finally looked down, kicking a lump of sand off of her feet.

"I can't say I'm a relationship expert," said Nicole, "considering how things are going with Shae right now. But even when we're fighting I always have in the back of my head how good it can be. If you don't have that with Champ..." She shrugged.

"It'll be a huge change," said Waverly.

"It'll be all right," said Nicole. She took a step closer to Waverly, freed one hand from its pocket, and squeezed Waverly's shoulder. "I promise. You've got folks on your side. Wynonna, your Aunt Gus. Me, if you need me."

"I know." Waverly lifted her eyes to the sky. With an exasperated sigh, she rested her hand over Nicole's, tapping her knuckles and gesturing for her to look up, too. "I was supposed to be showing you the good things about this place," she said. "But it looks like we're going to end on a bad note."

Nicole tipped her head back. A few lonesome stars pricked the blue-black quilt slipping over the world in the sun's wake. "It's so empty," she whispered.

"It's too bright for stars here. You know, I haven't seen the Milky Way in years?"

Nicole shook her head, eyes fixed on the great expanse of nothingness above them. A plane glided by, recognizable only as a cluster of fast-moving lights in the darkness. "I think we've got this experiment all wrong. Instead of convincing me to want to move here, I should be convincing you to come home."

"That's right," said Waverly. "You're from Calgary."

"Not too far from your hometown, according to Nedley."

"Small world." Waverly rubbed her arms as though a chill had overtaken her, though the breeze off the ocean was heavy and warm.

"So?" said Nicole. "What do you say? Is it time to take a trip back home, see the stars the way they're meant to be seen?"

Waverly shook her head. "Someday."

"Tomorrow's a someday."

The exasperated half-smile on Waverly's face drew a grin from Nicole. "Oh, you know what I mean. I have work, and Wynonna hates going back, and Gus loves visiting me here. And home is..." Even in the darkness, a shadow flitted over Waverly's face. "Home is so far away."

"It's still home," said Nicole.

"Someday," said Waverly again, and that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beach scenes in this chapter are some of my favorite parts of this story. I'm indescribably nervous and excited about sharing them.
> 
> Also: I tried to write a song for Waverly and Nicole. I really, really tried. But I decided, in the end, that I wasn't going to subject you to the horror. Honestly, though, what possessed me to write a fic about songwriting when I'm terrible at writing songs????
> 
> Also also, because apparently I'm in a sharing mood today: I had to ask my wife to pick out Waverly's beach outfit because I'm butch as fuck and my personal style can best be described as "my rural mechanic grandpa". Nicole's clothes I felt I could manage, but California-Waverly was beyond my ken.
> 
> Next week: hard truths.
> 
> My ass is on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	6. Chapter 6

Two days after their beach outing, Nicole found Waverly pacing in the hallway.

"Waverly? You okay?"

Waverly froze, turned to Nicole, and painted on a smile. "Nicole! Good morning! I'm great! Oh, you didn't have to get me coffee!"

Nicole held two coffees in a recycled cardboard tray in front of her; she scraped at the edge of the tray with her thumbnail. "That's too many exclamation points to be all that great."

It was the first time Nicole had seen Waverly so agitated since her encounter with Champ. They'd spent the past two days almost exclusively in each other's company, forging their song together. Nicole had woken up every morning more excited than the day before. She'd sprung for coffee on the way in to work, hoping to coax a smile from Waverly.

The smile on Waverly's face now wasn't the smile she'd been hoping to see.

"No, no, everything's good!" Waverly narrowed her eyes. "Why would you think something's wrong? Did you hear something? Who told you?"

"Oh boy." Nicole stepped past Waverly, swinging the door open and leaning back against it to hold it open. "Come on. Sit down, drink some coffee, and tell me what's going on."

"Nothing's wrong!" Waverly let out a little huff, but flowed past Nicole into the room all the same. Her skirt tickled Nicole's knees. As she stepped into the room, she stopped short. "Oh, Wynonna?"

The door swung shut behind them. A tall, brown-haired woman unfurled from her perch on the back of the couch and hopped to the floor. "Hey, baby girl. I've been looking for you." She eyed Nicole, one eyebrow arched. "Who's tall, hot, and ginger?"

"This is Nicole Haught. My guest artist. Remember?"

Wynonna scrunched up her nose and squinted at Nicole. "I guess I remember you saying something like that." She stepped toward Nicole, plucking one of the coffees from the tray before anyone could stop her. "Thanks, you shouldn't have."

Waverly planted both fists on her hips and stamped her foot. "Wynonna!"

Wynonna shrugged and took a sip of the drink.

"It's fine," said Nicole. Waverly continued to look like an over-boiled kettle; Nicole offered her the second coffee. "Really, it's fine. I'm not actually a huge coffee drinker."

"You keep that one." Waverly snatched the coffee out of Wynonna's hands. "This is mine."

"Sharing is caring," said Wynonna, but she shoved her hands in her pockets. "Anyway, I've got something I want to talk to you about."

With a final snort of annoyance, Waverly settled into the armchair, looking for all the world like a feudal queen deigning to grant an audience to her subject. "I'm listening."

Wynonna sat on the couch opposite her sister, crossed her legs ankle-over-knee and spread her arms over the back of the couch like wings. "It's a family matter." She looked up at Nicole and smiled; the sight made Nicole's hair stand on end.

Before Nicole could start her feet in motion toward the door, Waverly said, "you can't just kick her out, she's my guest. Nicole, stay." Nicole stopped in her tracks.

"Fine." Wynonna glowered at her sister, but her frown softened as she spoke. "Gus is sick. Mama's looking after her."

"Oh, poor Gus. Is it serious?"

"Serious enough that they don't think she'll be well enough to make her usual trip. Mama..." Wynonna glanced at Nicole and gave a frustrated grunt. "Mama inquired, politely, if we could pretty please come home instead."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her no way." Wynonna picked at the seam of the couch.

Waverly sighed. "Good. Thanks for taking care of that."

"Didn't have much choice. Apparently, Mama tried to call you last night but you had your phone off, so I got an earful instead. Thanks for that, sis. What were you doing, anyway? Please don't say Champ."

Nicole just barely stopped herself from retching at the image Wynonna's comment planted in her mind. Wynonna looked up at the resulting squeak and nodded. "Thank you! That's what I keep telling her."

"You're both awful," said Waverly, though the smile cracking through her facade put the lie to her words. "And for your information, I wasn't with Champ, I was with Nicole. I'm showing her around L.A."

"Oh, you mean boring her to death? What did you say your name was? Nicole...?"

"Nicole Haught." Nicole extended a hand to Wynonna, whose face had broken out in a wolfish grin.

"Yeah, you are. Careful, Waves, or this one'll steal Champ away from you." Wynonna leaned over the arm of the couch, hid her mouth with her hand, and stage-whispered, "please?"

"I'm a lesbian," said Nicole, her features contorting as if someone had dumped the contents of a sun-baked garbage can on her shoes.

Wynonna slipped back onto the couch again. "That works, too. Maybe you can steal her away from Champ."

"No one's stealing anyone," said Waverly. "Wynonna, don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Aw, come on, don't you want to spend time with your beautiful big sister?"

"Nicole and I have work."

"All right, fine. I know when I'm not wanted." Wynonna peeled herself off the couch and made a show of dusting herself off. "Have fun, use protection, don't do anything I'd do."

"So that's Wynonna?" asked Nicole, taking the newly vacated seat on the couch once the stomp of Wynonna's boots had faded.

"Unfortunately," said Waverly, smiling. "Ready to work?" She started flipping through her notebook to her notes from their writing session the day before.

Nicole shook her head, raising an eyebrow. "Not so fast. What had you pacing like a mountain lion in a zoo?"

"Oh, that. Nothing important. Just marketing people being scared stupid."

"Is it about the album?"

"Yeah. It's so... ugh!" Waverly snatched up her notebook and slapped it back down on her knees. "Sorry. It was about this song and I'm feeling really protective of it."

"What about it?" Jealous fervor exploded in Nicole's chest like crackling fireworks. "They're not cutting it?"

"No! Well, I don't think so."

Nicole's throat closed up. "They can't cut it, they haven't even heard it."

"I know! And it's going to be so good!" Waverly ran her fingers through her hair, then bubbled over again with more sounds of frustration. "I finally told them what it's about. About me. They seemed supportive at first, but then they started getting fussy about deadlines."

Nicole frowned. "Sounds fishy to me."

"Me too," said Waverly. "Is this what it's going to be like? It's just that I was prepared for people to say horrible things, slurs and things like that. I planned for that. I didn't expect... whatever this is. Acting nice but then trying to shoot down a song they were excited about before I came out."

"It's like this sometimes," said Nicole. She leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Subtle, so you sit there wondering if you're the one misinterpreting it. I'm sorry you had to go through that alone."

Waverly shrugged. "I'd have to learn how to deal with it eventually."

Silence hung between them, an anchor dragging them down into their own thoughts. Nicole shook her head, shedding the weight.

"I don't know about you," she said, "but I'm sure as hell not ready to let them take this song from us."

"Me either." Waverly's face shifted, like sunlight dappling the bottom of a lake. "We're just going to have to make this the best song anyone's ever heard."

Her face glowed with determination, glee, and something else. Whatever that something was, it seemed like a candle in Waverly's hand, its wick dipping to a matching candle in Nicole's grip, igniting a flame within her, too. Then Shae's visage appeared in her thoughts, tearing through Nicole like the vanguard wind of a thunderstorm. The candle light winked out, leaving only acrid tendrils of smoke in its wake.

Nicole shivered, forced the feeling into the back of her mind, and picked up her notepad. If Waverly had noticed Nicole's reaction, her face didn't betray it. Nicole chiseled a smile into her cheeks. "Ready to get to work?"

* * *

Hours later, as Nicole perched on the arm of the couch trying different melodies on her guitar, a stern blonde woman marched into their room without knocking.

"So?" said the woman. Waverly jumped and spun away from the whiteboard where she'd printed various lines and had been rearranging them to find the ideal order.

"Nicole, this is Jeannie Lucado," said Waverly. "From marketing."

Nicole slid off the couch and offered her hand, which Lucado accepted with a brief, firm shake.

"Don't call me Jeannie. So glad to finally meet you," said Lucado, clearly lying. She turned her attention back to Waverly. "So?"

"It wasn't done this morning and it's not done now. Writing isn't instantaneous."

"I'm aware." Lucado folded her hands behind her back and strutted toward Waverly, peering at the lyrics on the board. Nicole followed, hovering just behind her. She felt like an agitated cat, tail puffed and swishing, ears turned back against her skull.

Taking a step back from the whiteboard, Lucado shook her head. "This is why we thought using a song from our stable of successful songwriters would have been a better idea. I was under the impression that you'd made better progress than this. All you have are incoherent lines and an ill-fitting melody."

Nicole worried her back teeth would explode like tiny grenades, she was clenching them so hard.

"We have another week," said Waverly.

"To write and record. You need to be in the studio by Wednesday if we have any hope of getting this song onto the album in time. If you can't meet your deadline, we'll have to cut it."

"We'll have it done," said Nicole.

Lucado finally looked at her again, one eyebrow raised. "Really? You'll pull... this... together?" She waved her hand at the bones of their song, laid bare on the wall.

Nicole crossed her arms. "It doesn't need much pulling together. We've been trying out some options, but we've got the framework locked down."

"Is this true?" Lucado asked, addressing Waverly. Over Lucado's shoulder, Nicole mouthed, _trust me_.

"Um, yep," said Waverly, catching Nicole's silent message. "Yes, definitely."

"Well," said Lucado, her voice dripping with disbelief. "I'm sure you won't mind playing it for me."

Waverly's eyes widened, but Nicole readjusted her guitar strap and nodded. "Sure thing. Ready?" She locked eyes with Waverly again. Then she began to play.

The melody had been hiding from her all afternoon; she'd found bits and pieces of it, had chased them down, trying to tie everything together. As she played, everything fell into place, each note flowing from the one before it and calling to the one after.

When Waverly began to sing, Nicole nearly dropped her guitar; she hoped Lucado hadn't noticed the skipped notes when her fingers froze on the strings. She and Lucado stared at Waverly, who winked at Nicole. Nicole almost dropped her guitar again.

They made it through one verse; with each line, Nicole dreaded hearing only her chords and not Waverly's voice. But Waverly sewed the song together, line by line, following Nicole into a bridge and through the chorus.

Nicole stilled her guitar strings, her smile so wide it burned. Waverly grinned back at her over Lucado's shoulder, and it wasn't until Lucado let out a frustrated _harrumph_ that either of them remembered she was there.

"It sounds fine," said Lucado. "It still needs work."

"Of course," said Waverly. "Like Nicole said before, we've got the framework of it."

"Well, keep at it. We'd like to record as soon as possible."

Then Lucado marched out of the room in a cacophony of heels on hardwood.

"Oh my god," said Nicole, brushing her hair back from her face. Waverly raised her hands to her cheeks, beaming at Nicole over the tips of her fingers. Then she threw herself at Nicole, and Nicole just managed to swing her guitar out of the way before she caught Waverly in her arms.

As she spun Waverly around, Waverly babbled in her ear, "that's it! we did it!" Nicole laughed into Waverly's hair. She set Waverly down and they stumbled, steadying each other, Nicole's hands on Waverly's shoulders and Waverly's hands on Nicole's hips.

Waverly's fingers curled into the fabric of Nicole's shirt. One of Nicole's fingers brushed the skin at the collar of Waverly's blouse. The same look from before flickered across Waverly's face; for a moment, she was as incandescent as a newborn star.

She dropped Nicole like a hot coal.

"So," said Waverly, taking three steps away from Nicole in quick succession, stopped only by the whiteboard tray striking the small of her back. "Just two more verses and we're pretty much there."

"Right," said Nicole, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Waverly watched her warily, as though she stood on an empty plain and Nicole was a burgeoning thunderhead. Nicole kept her distance. "We should get to work on that."

"Yeah." Waverly crossed her arms over her chest, then one of her hands trailed up toward her shoulder and along her collarbone, fiddling with the necklace it found there. For a moment she stared at Nicole, searching her face. Nicole swallowed and quirked her eyebrows; Waverly shook her head like she was trying to clear it.

"That melody was really good," said Waverly, breaking the silence as she pushed away from the wall and shot past Nicole. "Do you want to keep working on that? I can work on the lyrics while you do that."

"I think we should work on the lyrics together, don't you? Unless there's still something off about the music?"

Waverly's hands fluttered with denial. "No, it's great! Yeah, we can work on the lyrics together."

They puttered around for a bit, pulling out notebooks and flipping through pages. Waverly dove into their notes, ideas spilling rapid-fire from her lips. Nicole kept up as best she could, sorting through Waverly's ideas and springing on the best ones. Soon, they began chaining ideas together like just-woken synapses after the first hit of morning coffee.

Even as they settled into their usual rhythm, something persisted in the back of Nicole's mind like a rock in the bottom of her shoe. Something had spooked Waverly. She just wasn't sure what.

* * *

They parted in the evening after several generous doses of caffeine, plentiful Chinese takeout, and an encouraging amount of work completed. The hotel bed beckoned to Nicole, but Waverly's odd behavior still nagged at her. When she stepped into the room and found Dolls still up, his nose buried in some kind of paperwork, she said, "you wanna go get a drink?"

Dolls begged for five minutes to finish his task, which turned into fifteen minutes, and by the time he was done, Nicole had let her head sink into her arms on the kitchenette counter.

"Sure you don't want to sleep?" asked Dolls, nudging her awake.

"No, I need a drink. And to talk."

Dolls raised his eyebrows but otherwise said nothing, and followed Nicole out of the building.

After some Googling, they headed for the most relaxed bar they could find—minimal dancing, a pool table, only a few big-name beers on tap—and settled down with a pair of perspiring pints.

"So what did you want to talk about?" asked Dolls, but Nicole shook her head.

"Not yet. Let's start with you. What have you been up to?"

"Work," said Dolls.

"Ha ha. Really, though."

"That's pretty much it, I don't know what else to tell you." Dolls chuckled and took a sip of his beer. "You want specifics? I've been trying to put together a plan for you going forward. A full album, merchandise, a tour. I've been talking with your lawyer a lot."

Nicole froze mid-sip and slowly lowered her beer to the bartop. "I have a lawyer?"

"You've met her. Eliza?"

"She's my lawyer? I thought she was your friend."

"She's my friend and she's your lawyer, and she's excellent at her job."

"Dolls... do I pay you enough for all that?"

"She gives me the friends and family discount. And yes, you pay me fairly."

"Good, you deserve it. Whatever it is." She gripped his shoulder and gave him a shake, and he swatted her hand away with a smirk.

"Enough about me. What did you want to talk about?"

The sound that escaped Nicole was halfway between a growl and a sigh. She took a long draw from her pint glass and set it down, dragging her finger through condensation on its exterior. "Waverly Earp."

"You've got a problem with Waverly Earp?"

"No, not a problem. Definitely not a problem. I'm just... confused by her."

"How so?"

Nicole rested her elbow on the bar and laid her cheek against her propped-up fist. "I thought we were getting to be friends. We've talked, a lot, about all kinds of stuff. And then we went to the beach the other day and I thought we had a really good time. But she was so weird with me today."

"You went to the beach with her?" said Dolls, cutting off Nicole's spiel.

Nicole frowned. "Yeah?"

"How did that come about?"

Pressing her lips together, Nicole turned away from Dolls and focused on the lace slipping down the inside of her glass. "I talked to Shae. About living here. She wanted me to go out and try to find reasons to like this place. So I asked Waverly to help."

"Did she?"

Remembering that day was like falling backward, Nicole thought, and hoping something soft would be there to catch her. She thought of the ocean breeze playing with Waverly's hair, thought of moonlight sketching Waverly's profile as she gazed at the sky. She thought of Waverly's eyes, aglow with the last embers of sunlight when she told Nicole that her hair looked amazing. "Yeah," said Nicole. "I think so."

In the corner of her eye, she saw Dolls nodding, and she turned back to him. He had spun on his stool to fully face her, one leg propped on the rung of the stool and the other stretched to the floor. He leaned against the bar, half of a smile buried behind his lips.

"What?" she said.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Keep going. She was weird with you today?"

"Yeah, I don't know how to explain it. We were working on the song when this lady from marketing came in. Lucado?"

"Oh yeah, I met her. Real piece of work."

"You're telling me. She started grilling Waverly about the song, basically threatening to cut it, and I totally panicked and bluffed and said we had more done. The crazy thing is, it worked. Waverly and I were... it was like we were perfectly in tune, almost like we could read each other's minds. But she got so awkward after. I don't know if I did something or... I don't know."

The bartender approached them, silently inquiring if they wanted refills. Dolls silently replied in the affirmative for both of them, as Nicole had dipped her head to stare at the wood grain in the bar and drag her hair back from her face.

"So," said Dolls, a smidgen softer than usual. Nicole perked up at the sound. "You're not going to like what I'm going to say."

"I can take it," said Nicole. Their second beers arrived.

"Take a sip of that, then put it all the way down," he said. She obliged him, and when the glass was safe on its coaster, he said, "you like her."

She wrinkled her nose. "Yeah? Of course I do, it's hard not to."

"No, I mean..." He dragged his hand over his face and groaned. "Haught, you're into her."

She reeled back as though he'd punched her, screwing up her face even more. "What? No, I'm not."

"When I asked you if Waverly helped you appreciate this city, you got this absurd look on your face. I was there for the beginning with Shae. I remember that face."

"No, Waverly is..." Nicole held up a hand between them, warding off Dolls' accusation. "We're friends. She's... she's..."

"Amazing? Beautiful? Talented?"

"Well, yeah, but not... not like that. This is ridiculous. Can't I be friends with a girl without it being a thing?"

"Of course. You admire Eliza and you're not into her."

Nicole scoffed. "Now I know you're losing it. Eliza's super hot. And Waverly's... attractive. But I can think people are hot without it being whatever you're implying."

"I'm not implying anything. I'm telling you straight, you've got a crush on Waverly Earp."

"Stop." She pushed off her stool and yanked her wallet out of her pocket. She threw several bills on the bar then turned toward Dolls, brandishing a finger at him in warning. "Waverly's my friend. That's all she is. I have a girlfriend. I love her. I would never, ever cheat on her."

Her words dripped with anger and she laid her clenched fist on the bar, knuckles white against the dark, polished wood.

"You know that's not what I'm saying." Dolls leaned away from her, but otherwise remained placid. It triggered something inside her, an itch begging to be scratched.

She ignored it, but it derailed her like a speeding race car careening off the track. She stomped toward the door. "I'm leaving. Don't wake me up when you get back."

"Haught," he said in a halfhearted attempt to reel her back in, but they both knew it was useless. She left him at the bar with enough cash to get shitfaced and still get a ride. She guessed that she would find the whole sum on her dresser in the morning, neatly folded and without commentary.

Back at the hotel, she simmered. As she showered, as she changed for bed, as she turned out the light, she thought, _he's wrong_. She burned with it; how could he say that? how could he even think it?

But as the first tendrils of sleep wrapped around her, dragging her off to dreamland, the little itch in the back of her mind transformed into a little voice: her own voice, small and quiet, barely audible above the din of her protests.

In the quiet of the hotel room, trapped beneath scratchy sheets, she fell asleep to that little voice whispering, _what if he's right?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nicole, you really shouldn't lash out at your friend like that.
> 
> ~~So I have a[tumblr](https://gooseclaws.tumblr.com/) and I haven't had much of an idea what to do with it. I've been thinking and I'm wondering if anyone would be interested if I started posting author's notes or things like that over there? Sometimes I have a lot of thoughts about how I went about writing things but I don't want these end notes to turn into essays and I don't even know if that's something anyone would want to read!~~ I deleted the Tumblr app off my phone so let's forget I mentioned it mkay?
> 
> I'm also on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws?lang=en).
> 
> Next week: a pang of jealousy, a big fight, a bad decision.


	7. Chapter 7

Nicole slipped out of the hotel room the next morning without speaking to Dolls, making sure to gather her cash from the dresser first. His door was closed; she studied it as though it might swing open just before she left, revealing Dolls with an apology hidden in that aggravating smile of his.

No such luck. She left, his words from the night before clinging to her like a shadow. When she arrived at the studio, she cut through the lobby, angling toward Waverly's favorite room. A voice calling her name stopped her.

Its owner raised a hand in greeting when their eyes met: a woman about her age give or take a little, brown hair pulled into a ponytail. "Wow," said the woman as she drew closer. "You're exactly like she described."

"I'm sorry?"

"No, I'm sorry, I should introduce myself. I'm Rosita Bustillos, I'm producing your single with Waverly. She told me to meet you. She got caught up with some other business but she'll join us in a bit."

Something about Rosita's smile twisted in Nicole's gut; she raised an eyebrow. "How did Waverly describe me?"

Rosita shook her head. "That'd be telling." She led Nicole to a new part of the building, into one of the recording rooms. Beyond the control room, two microphones had been set up across from each other.

"I've got one of my sound engineers setting this up," said Rosita, gesturing to the microphones. "I want to get you singing together for this."

Nicole crossed her arms and frowned. "Facing each other? The song isn't really a duet..."

"Oh, I know. Don't worry, I'm not thinking power ballad or anything like that. But I've listened to your EP and I think your voices will play nice with this setup. If it freaks you out, we'll change it."

"No, I'm not... it's fine." Nicole eyed the microphones again, as warily as if they were venomous snakes. Standing across from Waverly, singing with her, singing _to_ her... 

Rosita narrowed her eyes, studying Nicole. "You sure it's fine? You don't look fine."

"It's fine."

"All right," said Rosita, clearly unconvinced. She gestured for Nicole to sit. "So, how do you like working with her?"

Nicole folded herself into a rolling chair. "She's great. I've never really written songs with other people before, but I think she's the best writing partner I could have asked for."

"You're sweet," said Waverly from the doorway, and Nicole just about jumped out of her seat.

"There you are," said Rosita, unbothered, smirking at Nicole. "Everything okay with the suits?"

Waverly glided into the room, leaning back against the soundboard just inches from Nicole. "Grumpy as usual, but nothing too bad." She looked down, a smile blossoming when her eyes met Nicole's. Nicole's mind went blank, scrubbed of all coherent thought. Waverly's smile turned flat, a flower pressed and dried.

"Nicole? Is everything okay? Did you not like Rosita's plan for the song, because if not we can do something different—"

"No, sorry." Nicole scoured the junk bin of her mind for a smile, forced it creaking and rusty onto her lips. "Just... lost my train of thought for a second."

Throwing a furtive glance at Rosita, Waverly nodded. She nudged Nicole's foot with her own, and her expression became impossibly soft. "Okay. You know if you don't like something, you can say so. This is your song, too."

Nicole rolled in her chair toward Waverly, close enough to knock Waverly's leg with her knee. "Yeah, I know."

Crinkling eyes. Upturned lips. If Nicole's smile was a derelict, Waverly's was firing on all cylinders. Only Rosita clearing her throat could make Nicole tear her eyes away.

* * *

Working on the song with Rosita was a different beast from working on it with just Waverly. Instead of bouncing off of each other, letting their ideas bubble out like a wellspring and sifting through them together, Rosita became a guide, channeling their thoughts toward one sound.

Waverly still had the final say; occasionally, she nixed Rosita's suggestions or replaced them with her own. But Rosita, it seemed, had a gift for finding the path between what Waverly wanted and the raw materials they had.

Despite Waverly's insistence that she was a co-owner of the song, Nicole felt the "guest" part of guest artist. She gave input, played her guitar when asked, and otherwise watched them work.

"Is Rosita your regular producer?" she asked, packing up her guitar after their latest session, the night before they were going to make their first attempt recording vocals.

Waverly, who had nothing to pack, perched on a stool and watched Nicole. "No, this is my first album working with her."

Nicole nodded, hefting the guitar bag over her shoulder. "You guys work together really well." Her gut churned as she spoke, and she tried to keep a grimace off her face.

She must have succeeded, because Waverly smiled at her. Whatever concoction Nicole was brewing in her gut, that smile did nothing to settle it. "Yeah, Rosie's great. She's the person I go to when I can't talk to Wynonna." They meandered out of the recording room; it had become habit for Waverly to walk Nicole down to where Nedley waited for her every night.

Nicole held the door for Waverly. "Oh yeah? What sort of secrets need to be kept from Wynonna Earp?"

As soon as Nicole asked the question, Waverly blushed. "Um. Well. Some things, Wynonna's kind of... it took me a little while to tell her about me liking women."

"Oh, right. You told Rosita first?"

"I didn't have to."

"I don't understand," said Nicole, just as clarity washed over her; she regretted speaking the way a person might regret stapling their own hand to a table.

"I kissed her," said Waverly, trying to whisper but hissing so fiercely anyone nearby could have heard. "We had a little too much to drink and I just leaned in and... it didn't mean anything. Except that I realized I like women. So I guess it meant a lot."

Nicole's legs were leaden; her stomach churned. The mental image of Waverly kissing Rosita played inside her skull, over and over.

"Was it..." Nicole looked over her shoulder and peered ahead, checking for anyone else in the hallway. "Was it just that once? You've never..."

"Oh, no, definitely not. I have a boyfriend and Rosie's just my friend, so it was just a one-time thing. Not exactly a mistake, but... I like her, you know? Just not like that."

Silence slipped into the space between them, punctuated only by their footsteps.

"So it's not weird? Working with her?" 

"It was a little at first, but we got through it. For this song, I practically begged to work with her. She's so good at what she does and I'm learning so much from her. Someday I'd like to be my own producer, but I don't know if the label would ever let me do that. Contracts and all that."

Nicole held the door to the elevator. As Waverly passed by her, Nicole asked, "have you ever thought of going independent?"

Waverly paused. "What?"

Nicole pressed the button for their floor, and shrugged. "Going independent. When your contract's up. You're WAVES. You don't need a label, they need you."

"I don't know. That seems like a lot."

"It probably would be. But you could do it. People would be lining up to work for you. And from what I can tell, you've got a lot of people who would support you."

As she leaned against the wall of the elevator, Waverly pulled her hair around one shoulder and played with the ends. She regarded Nicole, as though Nicole were a puzzle she had yet to solve.

Then the look softened, and that damn smile was back, dancing on Waverly's lips. "You know, that's not a bad idea."

The Dolls in Nicole's head reminded her, again, of things she absolutely could not think about.

* * *

When Nicole arrived at the studio the next day, Waverly was already in the recording room, a thick pair of headphones around her neck. Nicole watched her for a moment through the window: lips moving to their lyrics, face scrunched up in thought. The sight knocked the breath from her lungs.

As though she sensed Nicole, Waverly looked up, caught sight of her, and waved her over. Nicole sidled up next to her, and Waverly hopped off her stool and wrapped Nicole in a bear hug.

If she'd thought herself unable to breathe before, now she was drowning. Waverly's presence rushed over her, filling her mouth, her nose, dragging her under. Nicole returned the hug as long as she dared, then stepped out of Waverly's personal space. "Nice to see you, too?"

Waverly covered her face with her hands. "Sorry. I always get nervous before recording a new song."

"I can hug you again if that'd make you feel better." Nicole lifted her hands as though to reach out to Waverly again. Waverly laughed and pushed them away.

"No, no, I'm fine. You're here and you're in the same boat. That's enough reassurance for me."

Waverly picked up her papers again, and Nicole started her own pre-recording rituals: tidying the space, inspecting the layout, humming to herself while swinging her arms back and forth across her body.

Then Rosita and her team entered, and it was time to work.

Nicole and Waverly stood across from each other, facing each other. On Rosita's signal, Waverly started singing. Nicole waited, keeping time by bobbing her head.

When Waverly hit the chorus, Nicole joined her, closing her eyes and singing the lyrics from memory. The second verse was hers, but as she prepared to start singing, Rosita cut her off.

"Nicole. Nicole, hang on."

Nicole stuttered to a halt. Through the window, she saw Rosita flinch. "Sorry. Sorry, I don't like to cut people off like that. It's just... you're not feeling it."

Eyebrows leaping toward her hairline, Nicole said, "I thought I was doing pretty well."

"It was... good." Rosita sighed, eyes lifted up as she searched for the right words. "But you're not giving it that... oomph." She made a fist. "That. I know you can do it. I heard it on your EP."

Nicole rubbed her temple. "Okay. I'll try."

"Oh god, I freaked you out, ignore me," said Rosita. "Take a deep breath. Look at Waverly this time. You wrote this song together, remember what you were feeling when you came up with those words. Okay?"

Nicole nodded, and they started again. This time, she watched Waverly sing. Waverly's eyes met hers, and a shiver ran up Nicole's spine.

She joined the chorus again, holding Waverly's gaze, and their voices melded. The chill in Nicole's bones morphed into heat, pooling in her fingertips and stomach. A tiny smile crooked the corners of Waverly's lips, and Nicole's heart beat sideways.

_You like her_ , said Dolls, in her head. Then again—except the voice was hers. _I like her_. She poured into the second verse, breaking eye contact for a moment. When she looked up again, the room lurched. Waverly smiled, soft and sweet, and Nicole could barely stand.

They soared through the second chorus and Waverly stepped in for the third verse, giving Nicole a moment to collect herself. Nicole's thoughts drifted to Shae. Beautiful, difficult Shae, waiting for her to come home with an answer.

As they mingled their voices for the last time, Nicole let every one of her feelings seep into the song. Her feelings for Waverly, her love for Shae, her frustration with the situation she'd gotten herself into. When they started this, she'd wanted to know why relationships had to be so damn hard. She'd had no idea how hard things would get.

Their voices faded. Waverly held her hand to her chest, over her necklace, and let out a heavy breath. "Wow," she said. "That was awesome."

"Yeah," said Nicole, with all the strength of a dying flame. She glanced at the window, looking for Rosita's input, and did a double take. Champ Hardy leaned into the microphone, a slack-jawed expression on his face.

He flicked on the mic. "What the fuck was that?"

Waverly set her jaw, rigid as stone. "That was my new song," she said.

"Real funny joke, Waves."

"It's not a joke. That's the new song, the one I've been writing with Nicole."

He glanced at Nicole, curling his lip, and she threw it back at him.

"Babe, that song was super gay." He smiled at Waverly as one might smile at a child.

Waverly's knuckles went white, still gripping her necklace. Her eyes flicked to Rosita. "Um, Rosie, can you give us a minute?"

Throwing a worried glance at Champ, Rosita signaled a thumbs up through the glass, then started hurrying her team out the door. Champ watched them go, shaking his head. "What, the chick doesn't have to go?"

"I can go," said Nicole, only loud enough for Waverly to hear.

"Stay," said Waverly. She made an aborted sort of reach toward Nicole, stopping when Champ's face darkened. "Champ... I've been trying to tell you this for a while. I like women."

He blinked, once, twice, then laughed. "What? You don't."

"Yes, I do. I was going to tell you when the album was done."

"Bullshit." He finally left the booth, stepping into the recording room. "You can't be gay, we—"

"It has nothing to do with you."

In a few long strides he was in front of her, towering over her. Nicole prowled beside them like a tiger, fists hanging ready at her sides.

"Yeah, it does," he said. "I'm your boyfriend."

"No," she said. "We're over. Not because of what I just told you. We just don't work."

"Are you friggin' serious?" Blood rushed to his face. 

"Yes, I am. And I want you to leave."

He took a step closer to her, and Nicole stuck an arm in the space between him and Waverly. "Hey," she said. "Back off."

With a grunt, he slapped her arm away. She grabbed the front of his shirt, planted her legs, and shoved him back from Waverly. He stumbled away, then regained his balance; when he raised his fists, she followed suit.

"What the hell? You wanna be her girlfriend or something?"

He'd slouched whenever she'd seen him; suddenly he seemed massive, a talking wall of muscle. "Calm down, Champ."

"Don't tell me to calm down! You're trying to steal my girl!" His face seemed to swell, a balloon about to pop. He took a plodding step forward and Nicole danced back.

"Hey!" 

Waverly's voice sliced between them. As one, they turned toward her: she gripped a microphone stand, brandishing it like a club. "Knock it off, both of you, or someone's getting a concussion!"

Still breathing heavily, still as tense as housecats in the middle of a scrum, they stepped back from each other and raised their hands in surrender. Waverly pointed the microphone stand at Champ.

"Get out of here," she said. "And call your publicist."

He turned tail and left, knocking Wynonna in the shoulder as he went. Wynonna rushed into the room, and at the sight of Waverly holding Nicole at mic-point, she cocked her head. "Okay, Hot Stuff, what the hell did you do?"

Waverly dropped her weapon. It clattered to the floor. "I broke up with Champ," she said. Her shoulders sagged, and Nicole went as rigid as if shocked by a taser.

"No way." Wynonna crossed the room to her sister and draped an arm over Waverly's shoulders. "Good for you, baby girl."

"Is it bad that I don't feel bad about it?"

"Hell no!"

Waverly sighed, wrapped her arms around Wynonna's back and pressed her face into Wynonna's shoulder. Wynonna returned the gesture, securing Waverly against her, and whispered something Nicole couldn't hear.

Nicole slipped out of the room. She found Rosita milling in the hallway.

"Everything okay?" asked Rosita.

Nicole swept past her, toward the stairs. "Fine now. Champ's persona non grata for the time being. Wynonna's got her."

"Where are you going?"

"Need air," called Nicole over her shoulder, slamming through the stairway door. Her sneakers smacked each step, echoing off the concrete as she wound up and up. When she reached the final landing, she threw her weight against the panic bar and burst onto the roof.

Her blood pounded in her ears. Her heart threw itself against its cage. A breeze trickled over her, barely cooler than her body temperature, but it was enough. She shrank back into herself.

Forget nearly fighting Champ. Forget Waverly's distress. Nestled between Nicole's ribs, burning like a coal, was a solitary thought: she's single. The heat from that coal inflated her like a hot air balloon. But then, like barbed wire tearing that balloon to shreds: I'm not. I have Shae.

It was all rotten. She was terrible. She wanted to throw something, to hit something, to collect the energy swarming over her skin like a colony of ants and expend it in one exhaustive burst. Though everything around her was cement and concrete, she imagined driving her fist into the wall: knuckles bruised and bloody, a crater left in her wake.

The image was enough to settle her again. That was the thing, wasn't it? Bad thoughts were fine. Everyone had them. She clasped both hands around the back of her neck and shivered at the cold sweat she found there.

Decisions were what mattered. Not just thoughts, but actions, put into the world for everyone to see. For everyone to judge. 

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed.

"You're not supposed to call me," said Shae, but her voice was soft, a question threaded through it.

"I couldn't wait," said Nicole. She paced on the rooftop, her free arm wrapped around herself. "I had to tell you."

Nicole didn't think she imagined the catch in Shae's breath, the inhalation like the strike of a match. "Tell me what?"

She tipped her head back. The sun reached down and brushed a gentle hand along her cheeks. Bad thoughts. Good actions. "I'll do it," she said. "I want to move to L.A. with you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this story were a stage play, the curtain would drop here, end Act One. I like a good three-act structure; it gives me a solid frame on which to hang all this pining and angst.
> 
> Quick edit: just noticed that adding this chapter means the fic has broken 20,000 words! Pretty neat! ~~I think~~ it's a little over ~~60k~~ 72k by the end, ~~but IDK for sure.~~ It's the second-longest thing I've ever written.
> 
> Next week: whiskey + Wynonna + Wayhaught = ?
> 
> I'm socially awkward on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	8. Chapter 8

Silence greeted Nicole's declaration. She gulped. "Babe?"

"You mean it?" Shae whispered.

The spring in Nicole's stomach uncoiled. Shockwaves reverberated down her legs, bouncing in her toes. "Yeah," she said. "I really do. Let's do this."

"Oh my god," said Shae. "Oh my god. I miss you so much."

"I miss you too. I can't wait to see you." Nicole wandered to the edge of the roof and leaned over the railing, resting on her elbows. "I'm so glad we can talk again."

"Me too. I missed you so much." Shae's voice shook. "Nicole... do you mind if I ask what brought this on? Not that I'm complaining. I just want to know what you're thinking."

Nicole stood up. Her fingers gripped the railing. "Waverly got in a huge fight with Champ. They broke up. You can't tell anyone that, by the way."

"The secret's safe with me."

"Thanks. I guess it just made me realize..." Nicole sighed, searching the concrete under her feet as though it held the right answer. "I don't know. I think I've been a bad girlfriend."

"You haven't been a bad girlfriend." Shae paused. "If anyone has, it's me. I'm... I'm so sorry."

Someone slammed open the roof door, and Nicole whipped toward the sound. Wynonna sauntered toward her, one eyebrow raised. "You doing okay? Rosie said you ran up here like a bat out of hell."

Nicole held up a finger and turned her attention back to the phone. "Babe? Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, I'm still at work and—"

"You have to go, I know. Call me when you're done?"

"I will. I miss you. I love you."

When Nicole hung up, she found Wynonna with her arms crossed. "Who was that?"

"My girlfriend," said Nicole, stuffing her phone back in her pocket. "What's going on?"

"Just came to find you. They want to do a few more takes but apparently you're some kind of singing genius. No one can shut up about it."

"I gotta be honest, with all the Champ drama I almost forgot about the song."

Wynonna groaned. "That motherfucker. He's lucky I wasn't there, I would've kicked his ass to hell and back."

They started down the stairs, their footsteps echoing and their voices loud. "I think Waverly had it covered," said Nicole.

"Yeah, she did." Wynonna chuckled, shaking her head. Her eyes twinkled with merriment. "You don't mess with an Earp."

"So I'm learning."

They reached the landing for their floor, and Wynonna slapped Nicole on the back. Nicole yelped, but Wynonna didn't seem to hear. "Waverly told me you almost threw down with Champ. Pretty ballsy. Thanks for standing up for her."

"You don't need to thank me for that," said Nicole.

They stepped into the recording room. "Well, I'm thanking you anyway, so suck it." Wynonna made a rude gesture.

"Wynonna, be nice." Waverly stood by her microphone as a sound engineer fussed with it. The smile on her lips belied the glare in her eyes.

"I am being nice!"

Waverly met Nicole's eyes and Waverly's entire face softened. Nicole felt that look like a hole in her stomach, like a pit that needed more of that look, those eyes, that smile to fill it. She felt her own features shift to match Waverly's, but caught herself; she remembered the quaver in Shae's voice just minutes earlier. 

Shae's longing had been palpable, so thick it had made it hard to breathe. Nicole tapped into that memory, let that fill the hole inside of her. She stilled her smile, stopped it before it progressed past _friendly_ , and took her place opposite Waverly.

She ignored the flicker of confusion on Waverly's face.

* * *

Rosita let them go a few hours later, once she was satisfied she had enough material to work with.

"I can't believe you're leaving in two days," said Waverly, walking down the hall between Nicole and Wynonna. "I feel like you just got here."

"I know," said Nicole. "I'll be happy to go home, though. I miss it."

Waverly laughed. "Is there room in your suitcase for me? I need a break."

"Feel free to visit. Shae and I would be happy to show you around. And she'd love to meet you."

"I think I'd like to meet her," said Waverly. "She must be a special person to capture your heart."

"She is." Nicole smiled, and Wynonna gagged.

"Okay, enough, you saps. I'm gonna hurl. If Nicky's leaving soon—"

"Please don't call me that."

"—we have got to go out. It's time to celebrate."

Waverly gripped Nicole's arm and tugged her to a halt. "You can say no. Wynonna's version of partying is... not for everyone."

"Uh, that's because not everyone is as cool as me." They reached the doors out of the building, and Wynonna pulled a pair of sunglasses from her pocket. "Nicole, seriously, as your new best friend, I can't let you go back to the middle of fucking nowhere without experiencing an actual good time. Whatever, bitches; let me know."

With that, she slipped on her sunglasses and strode out of the building.

"You really don't have to," said Waverly, "but maybe you can consider it one last lesson?"

Waverly's question left Nicole struggling to breathe, fingers tightening around her windpipe. "About that... your lessons worked. I called Shae earlier. I'm gonna move here with her when she's done with her fellowship. We'll practically be neighbors."

"Oh." Waverly blinked and started wringing her hands. "That's great. So awesome. I'm so happy for you. Um, do you definitely want to go out with Wynonna later? It's probably going to be a lot of drinking, maybe dancing, definitely carrying Wynonna's drunk butt home before she gets into any trouble. It'll be more fun for Wynonna than us, for sure. I understand completely if you don't want to go."

"Do you... not want me to go?" Nicole slipped her hands into her pockets.

"No! Gosh, no, I want you to come! I just worried it wouldn't be your thing. You should come. Definitely. Nedley can bring you to my place. I'll let you know a time. But I have to run, bye, see you later!"

Waverly popped up on her toes, leaned in, and pecked Nicole on the cheek. Then she stepped back, cheeks flushed like ripe apples, and hurried away.

Nicole brushed her knuckles against the spot where Waverly had kissed her. Her fingers curled into a fist.

* * *

Nicole arrived at the hotel to find Dolls with his feet up on the coffee table and the Kardashians on the TV. He looked up, nodded once, and went back to watching.

"You're not even going to change the channel?" She leaned over the couch behind him, propping her elbows on the couch's spine.

He shrugged. "The joke played itself out."

"I'm sorry," she said. "For yelling at you. It's not an excuse, but you hit a little too close to home and I freaked out. You were just trying to help and I should have known that."

As she spoke, he kept his eyes fixed on the TV; when she finished, he turned the TV off. She took that as a signal to round the end of the couch and take a spot several feet away from him.

Both of them leaned forward, elbows on their knees; Dolls steepled his fingers in front of him. "I'm sorry, too. I should have been more... tactful."

She snorted. "I don't think any amount of tact would have saved that conversation."

"Maybe not. So?" He sat up straighter. "Now that you're actually aware of your own feelings, how are you?"

"Pretty terrible, to be honest." She flopped back against the couch, satisfied by the _whuff_ of her body sinking into the cushions. "I realized you were right halfway through recording the song. That was the best take our producer got all day. Then Champ came in, Waverly broke up with him, and my first thought wasn't, 'oh, poor Waverly,' it was 'wow, she's single!' Like I don't actually have a girlfriend waiting at home."

She massaged her temples, closing her eyes against the world. It didn't help; the memories just played against the backdrop of her closed eyelids, instead. "So I called Shae and told her I'll move in with her when her fellowship is over."

"And she wants to move here?"

"Yeah."

"Here. L.A. Where Waverly lives. Waverly, who considers you a friend, and will want to spend time with you when you live in town?" Dolls goggled at Nicole as if she'd just told him she was thinking of moving to Mars.

"Shut up," she said, aiming a halfhearted swat at his arm. She missed, slapping the couch instead. "We won't move for a while. That gives me time to get these... feelings... under lock and key. So I can be the girlfriend Shae needs and the friend Waverly deserves."

"I want to take you out for a beer to commiserate, but after last time, maybe that's not a great idea."

Nicole got up from the couch and wandered into the kitchenette, looking for a bottle of water. "Oh, right... Wynonna invited me out with her and Waverly. Do you want to come?"

"No offense, Haught, but that sounds like a terrible idea."

She leaned back against the kitchenette counter, loosely crossing her arms in front of her. "I know. But what was I supposed to say? 'Sorry, Waverly, I can't go. I have a big lesbian crush on you and it might get weird!'"

He gave an exaggerated sigh. "So you want me to come to keep you out of trouble?"

"And to let me apologize. You can put all your drinks on my tab."

"I'm going to make you regret that," he said.

* * *

Nedley picked them up, quiet but for a comment on their "fancy duds." Nicole tried to draw him into conversation, but with Dolls in the audience, he responded only with mumbled yeses and nos.

He drove them to a house that sat just off the street, surrounded by a high wall. They passed through a locked gate and Nedley stopped the car in the driveway. A walkway led around the front of the long, low house to the door.

Waverly popped out of the door and she hurried to meet them halfway. Her skirt was about as short as her beach shorts had been, maybe shorter; her top hung loose and shimmered in the spotlights illuminating her home.

"I'm so glad you came," she said, drawing Nicole into a quick hug. Her top was backless; Nicole tamped down the eruption in her gut when her hands brushed the valley between Waverly's shoulder blades. 

They followed Waverly inside—the view of her back as damning for Nicole's soul as she'd feared—and took in the sight.

The entire home seemed to be made out of the same warm-colored wood. The entry hall plunged straight through the house to a backyard replete with greenery and what looked like a pool. A glass and steel staircase rose toward the second floor. Rooms swept away either side: a den to the right and a massive kitchen to the left.

"Your house is amazing," said Nicole.

"Thanks," said Waverly. "I can't take much credit for it. I gave Jeremy free rein to decorate it. He actually picked the place out for me, all I did was write the checks." She drew her arms about herself and rubbed her arms as though suddenly cold, though the air was a pleasant temperature.

"Not much of an interior decorator?" Nicole tried to slip her hands into her pockets, but realized she'd worn pants with only the barest imitation of pockets. She settled for looping her thumbs in her belt loops. "I'm surprised. It seems like something you'd be good at."

"That's very sweet," said Waverly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. Nicole felt as warm and as if she were wrapped in a downy quilt. "I do like decorating, but... I guess I never felt connected to this house."

"Waves misses ye olde log cabin where we grew up," said Wynonna, strutting out of the kitchen with a handle of whiskey in one hand and a collection of shot glasses clutched in the other. "Whoah, beefcake alert! Who're you?"

"Xavier Dolls," he said, standing up straighter, hands behind his back. "You must be Wynonna."

"Fair warning: whatever they told you about me, it's probably true." Wynonna handed him a shot glass. "Can you slouch a little more? My shoulders hurt just looking at you."

"Be nice," said Waverly for at least the second time that day, accepting a shot glass. Nicole followed suit, and Wynonna filled each glass with gusto and little regard for the gleaming wood floors.

"Are we toasting anything?" asked Waverly.

Wynonna shrugged. "I was just going to say 'bottoms up', but sure. To Waverly and the song and Nicole, I guess." She clinked her glass against the others, then threw the shot back with practiced ease.

Everyone took one more shot—Wynonna downed at least two more—before they filed out of the house and into Nedley's waiting vehicle.

Waverly slid into the back seat first, and though Nicole had been following close on Waverly's heels, she stopped short, grabbed Dolls, and shoved him in front. As he took his seat between her and Waverly, he turned to her and gave her a look of supreme indignance. Behind him, Waverly's eyebrows crinkled for just a moment before she shook a smile back into her lips and tried to draw Dolls into conversation.

* * *

The club was loud, dark, and packed with people. Wynonna whooped as they passed security to enter the more exclusive back room: still full to the gills, but with more famous faces. Nicole and Dolls exchanged more than one glance of startled recognition as they followed Wynonna to the bar.

"I'm not famous enough to be in here," said Nicole, accepting the latest shot glass from Wynonna. She was beginning to lose track of both celebrity sightings and alcohol consumption.

"There are plenty of not-famous people in here. Everyone has an entourage these days," said Waverly. "Wynonna's mine."

Wynonna shouted at them to stop yapping and take their damn shots. As the burn subsided, Nicole asked, "So I'm part of your entourage?"

"Of course!" said Waverly. "Like I said, mine's just Wynonna right now, so the position's always open."

"And one of the job requirements," said Wynonna, draping an arm over Waverly's shoulder, "is to make sure this one has fun. Time to dance, baby girl!" She steered Waverly toward the dance floor.

"Come on!" shouted Waverly, grabbing Nicole's wrist and dragging her along. Nicole turned back to Dolls, calling his name; he rolled his eyes, but followed them.

They made a little circle, dancing together, laughing at each other's moves. Whether it was the grins on everyone's faces, the alcohol in her bloodstream or some combination of the two, Nicole danced like she never had in her life.

Every so often, she let herself watch Waverly dance: eyes closed, movements fluid, body loose. Every so often, their eyes met, and Waverly's smile seemed to illuminate the entire club.

Dolls and Wynonna began to dance closer to each other, Wynonna blatantly invading his personal space. Waverly sidled up to Nicole, shouting just above the pounding beat, "I think they like each other!"

"I know!" shouted Nicole, leaning toward Waverly's ear. "This is amazing! He never likes anyone!"

Wynonna grabbed Dolls' hands and drew them to her waist, then spun to press against him, back to front. Waverly tried to hide a giggle behind her hands.

"Never mind, this is terrible. I'm not watching this," said Nicole. She turned away from the spectacle and regretted it instantly, finding herself face to face instead with Waverly Earp.

She fought the reflexive need to take a step back—surely that would be suspicious?—and continued dancing. It was okay. Friends danced together. Friends danced close together, even. It was fine.

Nicole closed her eyes and let the music seep into her bones. Her heart pulsed like a metronome. Her edges blurred, defined only where she jostled against dancers nearby.

Every so often, her hands or arms grazed Waverly's. Each time, she crashed and rebooted, fried by the sudden spark. Each time, she kept her distance. They were friends. She could keep it that way.

Then somebody collided with Waverly from behind. Waverly stumbled, steadying herself against Nicole. Nicole caught her, hands on Waverly's hips.

"You okay?" Nicole's breath eddied between her lips and Waverly's ear. Waverly only nodded, tipping her head back to catch Nicole's eyes.

Someone had run a jumper cable from a revving car engine straight to Nicole's heart. She tried to step back, ripping her hands away from Waverly, but another body blocked her.

"Haught sandwich!" shouted Wynonna, reaching around Nicole to grab her sister's arms and pull her in.

"Wynonna!" mumbled Waverly, pressed into Nicole's collarbone. Wynonna cackled behind Nicole and started grinding on her. Waverly tried to yank her arms out of Wynonna's grasp, but Wynonna clutched her like an eagle, her prey secure in her talons.

As Waverly fought to get free, her body pressed against Nicole's. It lit every one of her goddamn traitorous nerves on fire, trails of gunpowder leading straight to the pit of her stomach. "Bathroom!" shouted Nicole, and she broke through their arms and plunged into the crowd.

She found Dolls at the bar, ordering two shots. "Hey," he said. He saw her face. "What's wrong?"

"You were supposed to keep an eye on me."

"Sorry," he said. "I... got distracted. Did something happen?"

"Sort of?" She looked over his shoulder to see Wynonna emerging through the crowd, leading Waverly by the hand. "Shit."

He turned around, gave Wynonna a nod, and handed her a shot. Wynonna took it, downed it, and slammed it on the bar. "Thanks. You know this isn't the bathroom, right?" She pointed at Nicole and narrowed her eyes like she wasn't sure Nicole did know that. "People tend to get upset when you piss on the floor."

"I definitely won't," said Nicole, wrinkling her nose. "Sorry, I thought I was going to be sick, but I think I just needed to get out of the crowd."

"Are you okay?" Waverly laid her hand on Nicole's arm. "Do you need some water? Or do you want to pop outside?"

"I'm fine," said Nicole. Waverly's hand burned through her shirtsleeves; Nicole was sure that when Waverly pulled away, a blistering, red imprint would reveal Nicole's guilt for the world to see.

"You just need to drink more," said Wynonna.

"Is that your solution to everything? I'm fine, really, I'll just have some water and hang out in a booth for a bit."

"I'll sit with you," said Waverly.

"You don't have to—"

"Nicole, I'm sitting with you." Waverly's fingers slipped around Nicole's arm, holding her in place. She gave Dolls a shove on the shoulder. "Go dance, okay? We'll be fine."

Wynonna and Dolls slipped back onto the dance floor, and Waverly guided Nicole to a booth. They slid into their seats, Nicole clutching her bottle of water with both hands, and Waverly leaned toward her.

"Are you really okay?"

"Yeah," said Nicole. "Just a fluke thing, I guess."

"Okay," said Waverly. She folded her hands on the table, but they didn't stay still for long. "So, you say that, but are you sure it wasn't what Wynonna did? You ran away pretty fast."

Nicole felt the blood drain from her face. "Maybe a little," she said. "But it's fine, I just..."

"I get it. She's... a lot." Waverly cracked a half-smile. "I'll try to get her to back off a little."

"I think that'll make it worse," said Nicole. "I can handle her. I was just surprised. I'm not used to dancing that close to someone who isn't Shae."

Waverly sighed. "It must be so nice to have someone like that. A partner, someone you just always have in your corner. For dancing or going to see a movie or just staying in reading a book."

When was the last time Nicole and Shae had danced? Or seen a movie together? Their time together was either spent in bed, or fighting, or multitasking by fighting in bed. Nicole leaned her head on her fist. "It is nice. I... I think I took that for granted. I haven't been the best girlfriend."

"Well, now you have a chance to fix it, right?" asked Waverly. "I know we haven't known each other that long, but I know you're special, Nicole Haught."

Her words weaved a blanket around Nicole. Still leaning on her fist, Nicole gave Waverly a lazy smile. "So are you. However my life turns out, I'm glad I met you."

Her free hand rested on the table. Waverly laid hers over it and gave it a squeeze. Nicole felt a tug in her chest, like her beating heart wanted to leap free and join with Waverly's.

Nicole pulled her hand away, slowly, still smiling. She slipped out of the booth, made a show of brushing off her pants, then offered her hand to Waverly. "One last dance?"

Waverly followed her, taking her hand and letting herself be pulled out of the booth. They slipped back into the crowd, hand in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate title for this fic: _Nicole Haught Makes a Series of Poor Decisions_
> 
> Also, I cannot and will not stop making Mean Girls references in everything I write.
> 
> Next week: back in the real world.
> 
> I still have no idea what I'm doing on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	9. Chapter 9

Nicole stood on the sidewalk outside the hotel. She steadied her luggage with one hand. Her sweater draped over her other arm, though in the gentle California winter, it seemed unthinkable that she would ever need a sweater again. In front of Nicole stood Waverly Earp, who was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes while insisting that she was not crying.

"I'll keep you updated every step of the way on the song," said Waverly. "I'm going to annoy the heck out of you with texts."

"I'm looking forward to it."

"I know, you're such a dork." Waverly smiled. "Let me know when you get to the airport. And when you land. And when you get home."

Nicole laughed. "Okay, mom. I promise. I'm going to see you again so soon, though. We're pretty much going to be neighbors."

Waverly made an excited, high-pitched noise. "I know! Tell me the date you're moving, I'll make Wynonna come help."

"Wynonna's probably more of a hindrance than a help, but I appreciate it." Nicole let go of her luggage, stepped toward Waverly, and drew her into a one-armed hug. They leaned together, each supporting the other.

Nicole whispered in Waverly's ear. "You make this the best damn song anyone's ever heard, you hear me? Then they'll have to make it a single and you'll have to bring me back for a music video."

"Will you dance in it?" Waverly pulled away, her hands sliding down Nicole's arms to rest just above her elbows.

"Bring Wynonna around to feed me shots and we'll see."

Waverly gave up trying to hide her tears. "It's so not fair for you to show up in my life for two weeks like this and then totally disappear."

"I'll be back soon," said Nicole. "Shae's fellowship will be over in the summer, and then..."

After taking a hurried step back and folding her hands behind her back, Waverly said, "then I'll get to meet her. Good luck with that, by the way. I... I want you to be happy. I hope she makes you happy."

Nicole wrapped her fingers around the handle of her luggage again, her sweating palms sticking to the textured plastic. "Thanks," she said. Waverly wouldn't meet her eyes.

Dolls leaned against the car, waiting, checking his watch every so often. "Time to go," he said.

Nicole turned toward him, pleading; he shook his head. She turned back. Waverly was roughly swiping the heel of her palm over her cheeks.

In the space of a heartbeat, Nicole threw her sweater over her suitcase, stepped toward Waverly, and bent down to gather her in a crushing hug. Waverly rose on her tiptoes, fingers clawing at Nicole's shoulders.

"Don't go," said Waverly into the hollow of Nicole's throat.

Nicole bit her lip. She turned her head toward Waverly, just a bit, just enough for Waverly's hair to tickle her nose. "I have to," she whispered. "I wish I didn't."

Then Dolls cleared his throat, and they let each other go.

* * *

At the airport, Dolls left the car to extract their luggage from the trunk. Nicole started to follow, but Nedley called her name. He met her eyes in the mirror.

"That girl's really taken a shine to you," he said.

Nicole nodded. "She's really something else. Never thought I'd make a friend like her here."

At that, he turned in his seat to face her, one elbow braced against his seat and the other hand on the passenger seat headrest. "I like you, Haught. You remind me of me... if I was a nice young lady instead of a grumpy old man."

She goggled at him. He continued. "But that don't compare to the way I feel about that girl. I've known her and her family since she was knee high to a frog, and you won't meet a sweeter person. So you best treat her right."

"I will, sir," she said. "I promise."

"You better. Whatever you're thinking, you need to figure it out before she gets hurt. That girl has been through enough."

She gaped like a fish out of water, tangling her fingers in her sweater. "I... don't understand."

"No, you don't." He settled back in his seat, gazing out the windshield. "That's the problem."

She waited for him to speak again, but he remained silent. She reached for the door handle. "It was nice to meet you, Nedley," she said.

"You too, Haught."

Then she slipped out of his car, more confused than ever.

* * *

After they touched down, they stepped out of the airport to freezing temperatures and gentle snow. Nicole's breath clouded in front of her; the chill rattled her bones. She grinned. "It's good to be home."

Next to her, Dolls hunched over, hands tucked under his armpits. "Maybe for you," he said. "Is Shae coming soon?"

"She said just a few minutes," said Nicole. "You'll survive that long."

When they spotted Shae's car, Nicole waved, and the tires had barely come to a halt before Shae burst out of the vehicle, rounded it, and flung herself into Nicole's arms.

Nicole kissed her, hard, and Shae let out a tiny gasp. Dry skin on Shae's lips tickled Nicole's, and Nicole resisted the urge to bite. They pulled apart only to bury their faces in each other, Shae's fingers in Nicole's hair and Nicole's nose nuzzling into the spot behind Shae's ear.

"I missed you," Nicole mumbled into Shae's neck. "I missed you so much."

"I missed you, too. I'm so happy you're home." Shae kissed Nicole again, softer. "God, it's freezing."

"Yes, it is," said Dolls. "Can we please get in the car?"

Nicole laughed. "All right, Frosty. Better crank the heat, babe, or he'll be a popsicle forever."

"Wynonna Earp was a bad influence on you," he said, the essence of a smile on his lips.

They piled into the car: Dolls in the back seat, roasting his fingers over the vent like hot dogs over a fire; Shae in the driver's seat, her hand draped over the center cupholders; Nicole in the passenger seat, her fingers entwined with Shae's.

After dropping Dolls at his apartment, Shae drove Nicole back to hers. They stumbled inside the building, hands wandering, taking turns to admonish each other for such shocking public behavior, laughing all the while.

It took Nicole twice as long as usual to unlock her door; as soon as she did, Shae kissed her again. They managed to slam the door shut, then shuffled down the hallway to the bedroom, kissing and trying to strip each other's clothes off as they went.

As they fell into bed, as they removed the last of their clothes and sank into each other, a cloud pervaded Nicole's thoughts. Her hands moved on their own, along curves she had long ago mapped, with surety developed from years of practice. Every bit of the moment was familiar: every gasp, every ragged breath, every scrape.

And yet it was all foreign. She continued, hoping she could find herself again. Sex had always been their refuge. Whatever else bothered them, they had always found each other in bed. Nicole had always been able to reach out to Shae, find the edges where they met, and blur those lines until there was no barrier between them: not skin, not bone, not heart or mind.

That moment never came.

* * *

Afterward, Shae laid on top of Nicole, her chin resting in the valley between Nicole's breasts. Her fingers traced patterns across Nicole's skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. If she had noticed the distance Nicole felt, she gave no sign of it.

"I missed sex," said Shae, sighing.

"Me too," said Nicole. "I missed you." She reached down, ran her fingers through Shae's hair.

"Did you mean it?" asked Shae, after several long moments. She skimmed Nicole's collarbone with one fingernail. "Being all in? Moving with me?"

Nicole pushed herself upright, leaning back against her pillows and headboard. Shae followed, nestling under Nicole's arm. "Yeah, I did," said Nicole.

"I still don't quite believe it. I thought..." Shae absently smoothed the bedsheets on top of them. "I really thought you'd come back and tell me that would be it for us."

"Honestly? I wasn't sure for a while." Nicole sighed and dragged her hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face. "But I couldn't lose you."

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere." Shae leaned closer to Nicole, wrapping her arms around Nicole's waist. Nicole tightened her grip on Shae's shoulder. She craned her neck, pressing a kiss to Shae's forehead, then to her nose, then to her lips, and then Shae climbed on top of her.

Later, after Shae fell asleep, Nicole slipped out of bed. She pulled on pajamas and tiptoed from the bedroom, out to the old couch. She cracked the window open, sucking in a deep breath of frigid air. The snow outside was even deeper than it had been when she'd left. Some of it piled on her windowsill. She lifted the screen and took her time brushing it off.

Stars pricked the night sky. She recognized some of them. Her breath streamed out the window, dissipating as it climbed.

 _It's all still wrong_ , she thought. Seeing Shae should have fixed it. Kissing her should have fixed it. Failing that, sex should have been the panacea. None of it had worked.

Maybe she just needed to try harder. She would take Shae on dates. Maybe to the movies, or a museum, or just out for a nighttime stroll, hand in hand. She could give Shae space in her dresser, in her closet, in her medicine cabinet.

Nicole leaned her head against the windowpane. It sapped heat from her, but though she shivered, she did not move.

Buildings stretched out in front of her, taller than hers, blocking the horizon. Beyond that, she knew, were wooded suburbs, and past their borders, forests and plains and mountains. In between reconnecting with Shae, she'd have to pack her things and climb those mountains. She wanted to reach their peaks and sit on a ledge and look out at the world below. She had to say goodbye to this place.

There were mountains in California, she reminded herself, even if she'd have to travel a bit to get to them. There were nooks and crannies of lonely nature in the city, too. She'd just have to ferret them out. Maybe she could go back to the beach. Watching the sun draw night's cloak over the world, letting the surf lap her ankles, catching the gleam in Waverly's eyes—

She wouldn't think about that.

* * *

It turned out to be hard not to think about Waverly Earp.

Waverly started texting Nicole as soon as Nicole got back—Nicole got quite a lashing for not texting Waverly as soon as her plane landed—and though no text was ever anything more than friendly, there was a steady stream of them. Nicole found a smile tickling her lips more often than not when Waverly texted; whenever she caught herself, she dropped the conversation like a hot poker and made her excuses later. She was writing music. Spending time with Dolls. Spending time with Shae.

Shae started searching for apartments in L.A. the day after Nicole came home. She trawled the internet, searching for a place they could afford. Every few days, she printed out a new listing and hung it on Nicole's fridge, highlighting price or amenities or whatever she found appealing. Nicole read none of them.

She took Shae out to dinner. She bought her flowers. Shae took over half her dresser, set her toothbrush next to Nicole's, and squeezed into bed with Nicole more nights than not.

At dinner, conversation petered out. The flowers wilted. Nicole woke up some nights, suddenly claustrophobic, and dragged herself to the couch. She woke up alone, wrapped in a blanket, the lukewarm coffee pot the only evidence that Shae had been there.

* * *

A few weeks after returning home, Nicole was sitting on the couch working on some new music when she got a call from Waverly.

"It's done!" Waverly shouted.

Nicole gasped, dropping her pencil on the coffee table. "It is? Can I hear it?"

"I'm going to send it to you. You're going to love it."

"I can't wait. Is it going to be a single?"

"Yeah, actually. Not the first one, but it'll be out a few weeks before the full album. We're discussing a music video now. I'm sure Dolls will talk to you about it soon."

"That's incredible." Nicole leaned back, staring at the ceiling. "So marketing stopped freaking out about the, uh, content of the song?"

"Yeah, once they heard how good it is," said Waverly, and Nicole bit her lip to keep from laughing at Waverly's indignation. "Even Lucado, surprisingly. They set up a special interview for me in Rolling Stone. I talked about you a little bit. I'm pretty sure Dolls knows about it."

"He'll give me a copy." Nicole rubbed her knee, letting the friction of her jeans warm her palm. "I'm really proud of you."

"Thanks." Then, in a small voice, Waverly said, "I miss you."

Nicole shot up from the couch, suddenly dizzy. "Yeah, me too," she said, rapid fire. "So, thanks for letting me know about the song. Send it to me when you get a chance."

"Okay," said Waverly. "Are you all right?"

"Sorry, I'm a little busy and I have to get going. It was nice talking to you."

"You too. I'll be in touch."

"Mmhm!" Nicole nodded, wide-eyed. "Okay, bye!"

Her heart hammered away, each beat like a punch to the ribs. Nicole took a deep breath, then another, and everything began to slow. Her heart settled into its usual rhythm and warmth flowed back into her fingertips. Her phone pinged, a notification that Waverly had sent the song along.

Nicole crept into her bedroom where Shae had set up shop: cross-legged on the bed, hunched over her laptop and with dozens of reports spread in front of her.

"It's done," said Nicole, hovering in the doorway. "The song."

Shae looked up, her expression blank for a moment. Nicole imagined the tiny workers in her girlfriend's brain scrambling to switch from "expansive medical knowledge" mode to "regular human" mode. Then, at last: "oh my god. Baby, that's amazing! Can I hear it?"

"Of course." Nicole padded across the room and sat on the edge of her bed, nestling in among Shae's paperwork. "Before I play it, I should tell you something."

"Okay," said Shae, brushing her hand down Nicole's arm. "Is it bad?"

"No, it's not. I learned something about someone that I had to keep secret. It wasn't my secret to tell."

Shae nodded, and from the look on her face Nicole suspected she understood.

"Waverly Earp... well, I guess I don't actually know how she identifies, but she likes women."

Shae rested her chin on Nicole's shoulder and laughed. "Oh, I knew it."

"You did?" Nicole twisted to try to look at Shae, who was grinning like a madwoman. "How?"

"I have the best gaydar," said Shae. "Or maybe it was pleasebegaydar. She's so hot."

"Hey, that's my friend you're talking about," said Nicole, as a chill spread over the back of her neck.

"Your hot friend," said Shae. She pecked Nicole on the cheek. "Okay, now I'm dying of curiosity. Play the song!"

Nicole clicked play. The music started: uptempo, modern, not Nicole's usual fare, but not quite WAVES' either. Between everything, she heard her guitar, and felt a tingle of pride.

Then Waverly started singing. The sound threw Nicole back in time, back to the studio, standing across from Waverly and realizing something that had the potential to break her and her life in two. Her own voice joined Waverly's and she knew Rosita had used that take. This song had the potential to boost her career like nitrous oxide in an engine and it was a monument to her failings as a person and as a girlfriend.

As the song faded, she turned her phone over and over in her hands. Had Shae heard it? Did she know? Nicole chanced a look at Shae.

"I'm sorry," said Shae, stealing the words from Nicole's mouth.

"For what?" asked Nicole, slack-jawed.

"For everything I put you through." Shae scooted closer to Nicole, rested her head on Nicole's shoulder, and draped her arms around her. "Giving you an ultimatum. Not talking to you for weeks. I guess it worked out, but it was shitty."

Nicole leaned back into Shae, let their foreheads fall together. "Yeah," she said. "Writing this song helped."

"I love you," said Shae. She kissed Nicole's cheek again, then her jaw, then the spot behind her ear. Her hands started to move, flat against Nicole's stomach.

The response tangled in Nicole's throat, fighting to free itself. "I love you, too," she said. It left her breathless, whether from one of Shae's hands now sliding down the inside of her thigh or from the exertion of saying those three words, she didn't know. Nicole spun around, catching Shae between her arms and pressing her back into the bed. Papers crinkled beneath them; Nicole swept them aside.

"I love you," said Shae again. Nicole kissed her. Their fingers buried in each other's hair, their legs and knees knocking; they made short work of each other's clothes. Finally, Nicole felt the edges of her consciousness fraying, felt herself falling into the fuzzy delirium of sex. She opened her eyes to find Shae's and gasped: she'd expected another color, another face.

 _Screw it_ , she thought. She squeezed her eyes shut again and let her imagination run wild: Waverly's hands on her skin; Waverly's breath in her ear; Waverly's thigh between her legs. She stifled Shae's whimpers with her mouth, with her fingers. Hands tangled in her hair. Nails burrowed into her skin. When she came, her knuckle clenched in her teeth, it was with Waverly's name trapped on her tongue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, well, I suppose that's one way to handle things, Nicole!
> 
> Next week: a rumor and a question.
> 
> Yell at me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	10. Chapter 10

A week after Waverly shared the song with Nicole, her _Rolling Stone_ article released. Dolls strutted into Nicole's apartment and dropped the issue on the table in front of her.

"I never should have given you a key," she said.

"You're in the article," he said. "Not much, but she mentions you. You clearly made an impression on her."

Nicole pushed the magazine aside and put her feet up on the table. "We're friends. She made quite the impression on me, too."

"Do you talk to her a lot?"

"Not really," said Nicole. "She sent me the song last week and we haven't really talked since." Waverly's most recent text had come just after Nicole had fallen into bed with Shae; Nicole, pulling a shirt down over her flushed cheeks and chest, had replied as politely and blandly as possible. She hadn't heard from Waverly since. "I think we're the kind of friends who can happily go weeks without talking and then it's like old times when we're together."

"Right, of course," said Dolls. "Except for the part where that's total bullshit."

She crossed her arms, aware that she looked like a petulant child. "What do you want me to say? I messed up. I'm trying to fix it. If that means keeping Waverly at arm's length, I'll do it."

"I know you're trying to do the right thing," he said. "But you can't just ignore your own feelings."

"I want to be a good girlfriend," she said, sitting up straight. "I made a promise and I'm going to keep it."

He sat down next to her—right next to her, not on the other end of the couch—and folded his hands in front of him. "I'm talking with her team about doing a music video," he said. "Is that something you can do?"

She drummed her fingers on her arm, considering. "What's your agent advice?"

"They're paying well. The exposure would be invaluable. And it maintains a friendly working relationship with one of the top names in the industry."

"And your friend advice?" She glanced at him; he rubbed his chin and sighed.

"Like I said, it's good for your career. But if your relationship's your priority, it's probably a bad idea. Spending time with Waverly isn't going to help anything. Then again, you're moving to L.A. soon and you'll either have to figure out how to deal with being around her again or drop the friendship entirely."

She let out a puff of breath. "It's probably not good that the thought of not being friends with Waverly Earp makes me feel a little panicked, huh?"

"No, probably not."

She leaned back on the couch, stared at the ceiling, and groaned. "I spent two weeks with her. Two weeks and I'm a wreck."

He crossed one leg over the other, his foot bobbing nervously. "Do you want some more friend advice?"

"Please."

"Forget about the Waverly problem for a bit. You've got to think about the Shae problem."

"There is no Shae problem," she said. "It's all a Nicole problem."

"Whatever you want to call it. But I haven't seen the two of you look happy in a while. Since before your trip. And now you're moving hundreds of miles away for her?" He shook his head. "You're trying to make Shae happy and cure your own guilt. But what makes you happy? What do you really want?"

The corners of her jaw started to burn with the effort of not crying. "I don't want to move," she said, her voice cracking. "I love everything about this place. Leaving here, moving in with her, it scares me half to death. But I... I..."

She couldn't say it. For the first time, she couldn't say, "I love Shae."

Instead, she said, "I don't want to lose Shae." Bent over, face in her hands, she wondered at herself. How long had she been falling out of love and hadn't noticed?

She _had_ noticed. She had ignored it. Like her grandmother's ring in the back of a drawer, she had shoved it into the darkest crevices of her mind.

Dolls laid a hand on her back; warm pressure seeped from his palm into her spine and spread through her body. "At this point, you're going to lose something," he said. "You're just going to have to choose what."

He left soon after, taking with him her commitment to a music video with WAVES. She picked up the magazine, Waverly's face beaming up at her. _MAKING WAVES: WAVERLY EARP COMES OUT_ , it said.

She flipped to the article to find a full page photograph of Waverly, perched on a stool, staring away from the camera with a fey smile on her face. 

> **MAKING WAVES**
> 
> An Interview with Waverly Earp
> 
> _By Perry Crofte_
> 
> **Perry Crofte** : Thanks for coming in to talk to me about your new album. Three albums in as many years, you've been busy.
> 
> **Waverly Earp** : I have, but, actually, can we get right to something? I have something to say and it's driving me crazy not saying it.
> 
> **PC** : Having listened to the album, I think I know what you're getting at. Go ahead.
> 
> **WE** : Thanks, Perry. So... I'm gay. Put that right at the start of the article. Put it on the cover. 'Waverly Earp is gay!' That'll sell you some magazines.
> 
> **PC** : That's what I was expecting, but maybe not so boldly.
> 
> **WE** : Sorry.
> 
> **PC** : No, it's fine. Tell me about it.
> 
> **WE** : So, this isn't something I've been hiding or anything. I only just realized it. But I've always said I was straight so I want to clear the air. I was wrong. I like girls. I've dated men. I still don't know if gay is the right word for me—I'm kind of a newbie to these things—but I guess it feels right for now.
> 
> **PC** : Did this influence your process as you wrote this album?
> 
> **WE** : Sort of. There are a lot of songs about self-discovery. None of them are explicitly about coming out but I was thinking a lot about how we can go our whole lives not knowing things about ourselves. We can trick ourselves and then we end up having to outsmart ourselves to figure out the truth.
> 
> **PC** : You do have one song about being gay, don't you?
> 
> **WE** : It's not about being gay! It's about two people, who happen to be women, struggling to reconnect and stay together and figure out if they can still make each other happy.
> 
> **PC** : Nicole Haught is the guest artist and—correct me if I'm wrong—co-writer of that track, right? She's an out lesbian artist, is that why you brought her on?
> 
> **WE** : I never told her this, but I actually learned about Nicole because my mom loves her music. I got a call from her one day, _have you heard this girl? She's so good, you better get her singing with you!_
> 
> **PC** : Or else?
> 
> **WE** : Yeah, _or else_. That's my mama. But to go back to your question, I didn't ask Nicole to write a song with me because she's a lesbian. I wanted her, specifically. But it was really validating to work with her. I'm new at this and she's been out practically since day one, but she was so patient and understanding. And she's a fantastic writer. She was really a dream to work with and everyone should go give her music a listen and buy her EP.
> 
> **PC** : Is it true that you and Champ Hardy broke up? Is this why?
> 
> **WE** : We did break up, but it had nothing to do with my coming out. I still care about Champ and I wish him the best, but we realized we weren't right for each other. That's all I'm going to say about that.

The rest of the article discussed the rest of the album, songs Nicole had yet to hear. She skimmed it, her eyes drawn to the photographs of Waverly, in different outfits and different moods, but always glowing.

"Good for you," Nicole whispered into the silence of her apartment. "I'm so proud of you."

* * *

The article was barely a day old when Nicole got a series of frantic texts from Waverly.

 **Waverly:** don't look at the internet  
**Waverly:** I forgot how gossipy people can be  
**Waverly:** please just don't look at the internet

 **Nicole:** What's wrong?

 **Waverly:** NOTHING  
**Waverly:** just don't google yourself

Then Nicole got a phone call from Dolls.

"Why is Waverly freaking out?" she asked, before he could speak.

"Someone took photos of your trip to the beach," he said. "And apparently one time you went out to lunch? People are saying you hooked up."

"Really? They've blown right past 'gal pals' on this?"

"WAVES is one of the biggest acts out there and she just came out and broke up with her boyfriend," he said. "They're like hounds on a scent. I wouldn't worry about it. There are similar rumors about any woman she's been seen with lately. I saw one article wondering if she was dating the 'tall brunette' next to her and the photo was of Wynonna."

"Oh, _gross_ ," said Nicole, pulling a face. "Do you think I need to make a statement or anything?"

"No, it'll blow over. You might want to tell Shae, though."

"Yeah," said Nicole, swallowing to stem the tide of nausea rippling through her. "Thanks for letting me know."

After hanging up, she re-read Waverly's texts.

 **Nicole:** I talked to Dolls. It's fine

 **Waverly:** it's not! it's rude of them to assume two friends having a nice time are dating!

 **Nicole:** Yeah, it is, but Dolls says it'll blow over. I'm not worried  
**Nicole:** Okay?

 **Waverly:** okay. I'm sorry you got dragged into this sort of thing.

 **Nicole:** It's fine. I'm sorry you have to deal with it

It was a full five minutes later before Nicole received a reply.

 **Waverly:** is Shae okay with it?

 **Nicole:** I don't know. I'll talk to her when she gets home  
**Nicole:** I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not like anything happened

 **Waverly:** right. nothing happened

It would be fine. She hoped it would, anyway.

* * *

When Shae came home from work, she seemed subdued. Nicole panicked; she must have seen the articles.

"Hey, baby," she said. Shae didn't respond, just flopped onto the couch next to Nicole. The panic inflated, threatening to explode out of Nicole's chest. "Is everything okay?"

Shae covered her mouth with one hand, eyes wide. Then she turned to Nicole and broke into a smile. "I got it," she said. "I got the job!"

"In L.A.?" Nicole didn't know what to do with her hands. She grabbed Shae's shoulders. "You got the position?"

When Shae nodded, fast and wild, Nicole surged forward and wrapped her in a hug. They laughed into each other's shoulders. Then Shae roughly cupped Nicole's face and captured her lips in a kiss. She pressed forward, forcing Nicole onto her back on the couch.

"Wait," said Nicole, tearing herself away. "Wait, wait, Shae, wait!"

Shae pushed up on her hands, holding herself away from Nicole. "What? What's wrong?"

"It's..." Nicole scratched her head. "I really don't know how to say it in a way that doesn't sound awful. Um, apparently gossip websites are saying that I hooked up with Waverly when I was in L.A."

Shae pulled away completely, rocking back into a sitting position on the couch. "Did you?" she asked. Her face was half-laughing—she couldn't believe it—and half-worried—maybe she did?

"No," said Nicole, as decisively as a hammer striking an anvil. "Waverly's my friend and we spent a lot of time together but that's it. Nothing happened. She is a hugger, though."

As Nicole spoke, Shae pulled out her phone. Nicole wondered if she ought to have looked at the pictures, prepared a defense.

Shae started to laugh. "Oh my god," she said, and she leaned against Nicole, bumping their shoulders together. "They'll make up rumors about anything." She held out the phone for Nicole to see.

One showed her and Waverly, sitting on a blanket on the beach. Nicole held her churro toward Waverly, who leaned forward, about to take a bite. One showed them standing on the edge of the water at sunset, Nicole's arm fully outstretched, her hand resting on Waverly's shoulder. One showed them at lunch at the cafe, Waverly's arm around her and her phone aloft as she took a photo of them.

"I know that's not a photo of a torrid affair," said Shae. "You sent that photo to me the day she took it."

"Like I said." Nicole kissed Shae's cheek. "Just friends."

Shae kissed Nicole's temple, then rose from the couch to scrounge up dinner for herself. Nicole kept scrolling through the photos, laughing at the captions, until she found one that stopped her: a photo of herself, leaning over the railing at the pier, facing out toward the water. Herself, smiling, her thoughts far away.

Waverly, next to her, leaning backward, watching Nicole. Waverly, her eyes bright, one hand stifling a giggle on her lips, staring at an unseeing Nicole like she was the only person in the world.

* * *

In short order, Shae accepted the job, they found an apartment, and Waverly's team set the date for shooting the music video.

"I can't move until the end of June," said Shae, when Nicole told her the news. "Maybe... maybe if you move in first? Then you can take as much time as you need for the video and get things ready for when I follow?"

"That would mean being apart for a while again," said Nicole. She stood over the stove, making breakfast for them both. Dolls had woken them up with the information about the video.

"We won't be in a fight this time." Shae cupped her hands around her mug of coffee. "The time between the end of my fellowship and the start of my new job is so short, I think we have to do this anyway. It'll just be a little earlier than we planned."

So they started packing, folding Nicole's old life into boxes and preparing for the future.

Every day, they packed a little bit, their boxes well-labeled and organized. The weekend before Nicole was due to leave, they started on the more important things they hadn't been able to stow before: clothes, appliances, the last fragments of Nicole's life in Canada.

Nicole was crouched in the living room disassembling her coffee table when Shae appeared in the doorway. She clutched a little box in her hand.

Shooting to her feet as though someone had jabbed her with a cattle brand, Nicole said, "that's my grandmother's." Part of her screamed to run to Shae and rip it out of her hands, but her feet remained glued to the floor.

"You never gave it to me," said Shae. "I almost forgot about it."

The breath in Nicole's lungs turned to ice. "You knew?"

Shae had not stopped staring at the ring, its tiny diamond glinting in the sunlight streaming through the window. "I found it. That day at the beach. I went in your bag looking for sunscreen and... well, I understood why you didn't propose that day. But then we made up and things were better. So I waited. And waited. Eventually I just gave up."

She lifted a finger and traced the edges of the ring, its delicately-wrought filigree. Then she bit her lip, met Nicole's eyes, and held the ring out in front of her, stiffly. "Marry me," she said.

Nicole's heart lurched like a backfiring car engine. "What?"

"Marry me," said Shae again. "I know it's not my ring. This isn't how you're supposed to propose. But... we're moving to L.A. together. We got past everything. I love you, Nicole Haught. Will you marry me?"

Nicole stood immobilized. Thousands of needles pierced her skin, driving into her muscles, into her bones.

"No," she said.

"What?" said Shae. Her arm fell to her side.

"No, I won't marry you. I can't marry you."

"What?" said Shae again, her voice as ragged as a storm-tossed ship's sail. "Why?"

"This isn't right," said Nicole. Her words fell from her lips like hailstones. "It hasn't been right for a while. I've been trying to make it right but nothing works. Nothing fixes it."

Shae staggered toward the couch and sank onto its arm. "You didn't say anything. You acted like everything was fine."

"It's not fine." Nicole was a lit firework, her thoughts racing like a spark along a fuse. "It's not fine! I can't marry you. I can't move with you. I can't stay with you. I've been lying to myself for so long, trying to convince myself this is what I want, but it's not. I can't do this. I can't do any of this."

"I took a job!" Shae shot upright. Tears streamed down her cheeks but her eyes were as hard as the diamond still in her hand. "I took a job in L.A. for you! For us!"

"You took that job for yourself and you know it! You told me when all this started, you only came here for your fellowship."

"I would have stayed for you! If you really wanted to stay here, I would have stayed for you."

"That's news to me!" Nicole felt like she was crumbling, a sand sculpture dissolving into the ocean's froth.

"You're unbelievable," said Shae. "You're blaming me for this when you're the one who kept everything bottled up inside, lying to everyone around you. We could have talked about this."

"We can't talk about anything," said Nicole. "Every time I try to be honest with you, you turn it against me. I couldn't have feelings unless they were good ones or it was like I was attacking you."

At some point, they had closed the distance between them. Now they stood face to face, shouting, breaths crashing hot against each other like waves on the shore.

"Fuck you," said Shae. She jammed the ring box into Nicole's ribs then swept past her. "I'm going to L.A.," she said, stopping in the doorway. "Don't come after me. Don't call me. Don't text me. I never want to hear from you again."

"Fine," said Nicole. "Get out of my fucking apartment."

Shae slammed the door behind her on her way out.

Nicole watched her go, clutching her grandmother's ring in both hands, breathing like a bull facing down a matador.

The electricity coursing through her faded. The pounding of her blood in her ears subsided. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, she crumpled, just catching herself on her wrist as she hit the floor. The ring box jolted out of her hand; the ring wriggled its way free and lay sparkling on the rug.

Fighting rigid muscles, Nicole reached out, her fingers curling around the ring. She held her palm open in front of her. The ring quivered with the tremor in her arm. It wasn't until a tear splashed onto her skin, shimmering like the diamond, that she realized she had begun to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy
> 
> Next week: don't drink and dial.
> 
> Incompetent millennial on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	11. Chapter 11

Somehow, she managed to call Dolls. She didn't manage to explain anything to him through muffled crying jags, so he breathed a sigh of relief when he found her lying facedown on the couch, crying out her body weight in tears, but otherwise unharmed.

He got her upright and got a glass of water in her hand. He pried the ring free of her talon-like grip and stowed it safely back in her bedroom. Then he sat on the couch next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Shae left," she said, eventually, after a few long sips of water. "We broke up."

"I'm sorry," he said.

Nicole sniffed. "I thought you wanted us to break up."

"I wanted you to be happy. I didn't think you were happy with Shae, but I never wanted to see you get your heart broken like this."

"She didn't break my heart."

"Whatever you say." He gave her a squeeze and she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"She didn't. I think I broke my own heart." She took a gulp of water. "I did love her, you know. I'm not sure when it stopped. But I really did."

"I know." He rested his head on hers. "It wouldn't be this hard if you didn't."

They sat like that for what seemed like hours, his steady breaths and heartbeat keeping pace for hers. Eventually, she sighed and said, "you don't have to stay. I'm all right now."

"You sure?"

She pulled away from him. "Yeah, I'm sure." She imagined her own face: puffy eyes, tear-stained cheeks, hair a mess. Maybe 'all right' wasn't the best descriptor. "I'm exhausted. I think I'll just go to bed."

"Okay." He stood up, took her glass, and walked to the sink to refill it. When he handed it back, he asked, "do you have any alcohol?"

"Packed it up." She gestured toward the box in question.

"I'll be taking that, then," he said. He hefted the box in his arms and the bottles inside rattled. "I don't think this is safe for you to have right now. Do you want me to come over tomorrow, help you unpack?"

She shook her head. "No, I want to do that myself. Thanks, though."

"Anytime. And call me or come over if you need to, all right? I've got your back."

"I know," she said. With the box in his arms, she couldn't hug him. She settled for wrapping her arms around herself and holding tight. "You're the best, you know that?"

"Only for you," he said, and then he was gone.

She stood in the ruins of her relationship: towers of cardboard boxes, scattered piles of her belongings, picture frames leaning against the walls. She picked her way through them, finding her way to the things labeled 'kitchen'. In one of the boxes she found a bottle of scotch, a gift she'd bought ages ago in anticipation of Shae completing her fellowship.

"Sorry, Dolls," she said, as she opened the bottle. Her cups were all packed away—she'd planned to subsist on disposable dishes for the last few days of residence there—so she lifted the bottle to her lips and drank straight from it. She smacked her lips with satisfaction.

"A toast to Shae," she said, then she settled on the couch with her laptop, changed her Netflix password, and started watching all of the TV shows she and Shae usually watched together.

* * *

At 3 A.M., thoroughly drunk and with Netflix inquiring if she was still there, Nicole called Waverly Earp. No part of her told her this was a bad idea. She had only three thoughts in her mind, and that was bordering on too many: drink the scotch, adopt a cat, and call Waverly.

"Nicole?" Waverly's voice was thick with sleep. "It's 2 A.M. Wait, aren't you in a different time zone? What time is it there? What's going on?" As she spoke, her voice became clearer and sharper.

"Hi Waverly!" said Nicole. "Waaaaverly. I want a cat." She nodded, reassuring herself of her answer.

"You... what?"

"Never adopted a cat. Shae said no cats." Nicole waggled her finger in the air, sternly. "But there are so many cats! I want one."

"Are you drunk?"

"Only this much," said Nicole, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

"I'm calling Dolls."

"Don't call Dolls! Dolls took my alcohol. Not my scotch though. This is my Shae scotch. But fuck Shae. I'll drink her scotch if I want." Nicole tipped her head and the bottle back and swigged, nearly toppling over. She giggled, wiping dribbled whiskey from her chin.

"What's going on, Nicole? Come on, get your last two brain cells to give me a straight answer."

Nicole shook her head and the force of it twisted her whole body. The scotch sloshed in the bottle. "We broke up," she said, and a sob rattled her like she'd been hit by a cannonball. "I broke up with Shae."

"I'm... I'm sorry to hear that," said Waverly. Nicole sniffed. She thought she heard Waverly sigh, but then she also thought taking another sip—gulp?—of scotch was a good idea. "I'm going to call Dolls, okay?"

"No, don't go," said Nicole. She flopped onto her back on the couch, gripping the neck of the scotch bottle in one hand and pressing its bottom into her stomach. "I like your voice. It's pretty. You're so pretty."

"Put on one of my albums, then." Waverly's voice sliced through the haze in Nicole's mind like a knife. Before Nicole could muster a response, Waverly struck again. "I'm calling Dolls. Please don't drink any more. And don't call me again, okay? I have to sleep."

"Ffffine," said Nicole. She let her hand fall away from her ear, vaguely aware of her phone slipping from her fingers and crashing to the floor. The ceiling light burned her eyes; she jammed them closed. She tried to sit up, but abandoned the effort. Her skull seemed filled to the brim with cement.

The next thing she knew, someone was standing over her, muttering. "Jesus Christ, Haught," said the someone. She felt the someone pull something out of her hands, felt arms under her, felt her head sink into a pillow.

She went out like a light.

* * *

Nicole awoke to a splitting headache and the smell of bacon wafting from the kitchen. She rolled out of bed—in her pajamas, though she didn't remember putting those on—and staggered after the smell.

Dolls was in the kitchen, standing over her stove. He wore an undershirt and a pair of flannel pajama bottoms she was sure weren't hers.

"Dolls?"

"Good, you're up," he said. "Did you find the aspirin on your nightstand?"

She shook her head and winced. He chuckled. "Go take it and come back. Breakfast is almost ready."

After doing as she was told, she slipped into a seat at the table, folded her arms in front of her and face-planted onto them.

"Rough night, huh?" he said.

She grunted.

"That's what you get for hiding a bottle of very expensive scotch from me. Head up." She lifted her head and he slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. "Don't fall back down, those are runny yolks."

"You're a hero," she said. She crammed a piece of bacon in her mouth. "A literal hero."

"You'd do the same for me." He turned off the stove and sat opposite her. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got punched in the face, then the stomach, then run over, then tossed in a ditch. Did I drink all the scotch?"

"No, thank god. You drank a lot, then fell asleep on the couch and poured the rest of it all over yourself. Luckily you'd already thrown your phone on the floor so it was safe from drowning."

"Is that why I'm in pajamas?"

"That's why you're in pajamas. Your couch has seen better days, though."

Nicole chewed her bacon and watched him. "Why are _you_ in pajamas?"

"I brought them with me after Waverly called. I slept here. She said you were too drunk to be left by yourself." He shoved a forkful of egg into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "I know this isn't a regular thing for you, but... don't do that again, okay? You scared us half to death."

She blushed and pushed her food around with a fork. "Sorry. I was stupid." She dipped the tines of the fork in the egg yolk, let it coat the metal and watched it run back onto the plate. "I called Waverly?"

"You did. Something about a cat?"

"Oh, god." She let her head fall into her hands. "I have to apologize."

"I'm sure she'd appreciate that," he said.

When he left, she barricaded herself in her bedroom, sat cross-legged on the bed and called Waverly.

"Hey," said Waverly, her voice very still. Nicole gulped.

"I, um. I want to apologize. For drunk dialing you last night."

Waverly took a deep breath and let it out again in a huff. "What were you thinking? Dolls said you drank nearly half a bottle of scotch? You could have gotten alcohol poisoning!"

Nicole squeezed her eyes shut, shielding them with her hand. "I know."

"You could have hurt yourself!"

"I know."

"I am _so_ glad you're okay but I'm also _so_ mad at you."

"I deserve it." Tears stung Nicole's eyes and she swiped them away. "The good thing is it won't happen again. I think I'm done with dating forever. No more break-ups, no more binge drinking."

Waverly made a strangled little sound, then said, "I really am sorry to hear about that. You seemed so in love with her."

"I was," said Nicole, after a sigh that left her feeling as heavy as an anchor yet as empty as the bottle of scotch on her kitchen counter. "I don't know when that changed, but I couldn't keep dragging it out."

"Yeah," said Waverly, and neither of them spoke for so long, Nicole wondered if the line had gone dead. Then Waverly said, "I'm sorry, Nicole. I know you need to talk this out but I... I can't talk about this with you."

"Oh." Nicole chewed her lip. "Sorry, is it because of Champ? Or did I say something last night?"

Nicole remembered only bits and pieces of their conversation. Dread churned in her gut while she waited for Waverly's answer.

"What? No. No, it's... it's nothing to do with you."

"Then what—"

"I just can't, okay? Please don't push it."

"Okay, sorry." Nicole reeled as though she'd been slapped. "I'll leave it alone."

Waverly let out a frustrated sigh. "No, I'm sorry. I keep snapping at you and I don't mean to. I can't talk about it but I can help you. Are you still moving this weekend? Can I help at all?"

"Shit, that's right," said Nicole, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm not moving anymore. Shae is, probably. I don't know if she's moving into the apartment we picked or when or... I don't know. I didn't sign a lease yet so at least I'm not on the hook for anything."

"Oh, that's good. If you find out you did accidentally sign something, I can lend you a lawyer. I have so many lawyers."

"I think I'm all right, but I'll point Dolls your way if I need to, he was doing a lot of this for us anyway. I need to pay him more."

"You probably owe him your firstborn child at this point," said Waverly. She chuckled, and Nicole found herself laughing, too, infected by Waverly's charm.

Their laughter dissolved in the memory of the night before, in the uncertainty of the future lying ahead. Nicole cleared her throat. "So, I hate to ask, but... I don't suppose the label can get me a hotel room again since I won't have a place to stay?" Nicole flopped back on her bed and stared at the ceiling, picking out constellations in its imperfections.

"They could, but they'll grumble about it. Why don't you stay with m... my sister? Yeah. Wynonna has a pretty big place, she has plenty of space for the two of you. I'm sure she won't mind."

Nicole pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it, wondering if she'd heard right. When she brought it back, she caught Waverly starting to panic on the other end.

"Hello? Hello, Nicole? Are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, did you really just volunteer Wynonna's couch?"

"I did. Don't worry. She won't mind at all."

"If you say so." Nicole took a deep, steadying breath. "I think it's a good thing that I'll be down there soon. It'll be nice to be with friends."

"You have Dolls," said Waverly, her voice as soft as velvet. A smile gathered in the corners of Nicole's mouth at the sound.

"So I'll have you and Dolls." Nicole almost wished for the days of corded phones so she could have something to twirl. "I can't wait to see you."

There was another odd little breath on the line. Nicole thought of the photo of her and Waverly, of Waverly looking at her like she'd hung the moon, and the corkscrew in her gut twisted.

* * *

It turned out that Wynonna did take exception to her sister volunteering her home for Dolls and Nicole, but like many people she lacked the ability to say no to Waverly. After collecting them once more from the airport, Nedley dropped them on Wynonna's front doorstep and sped off before Wynonna could start swearing.

"All right, you mooches, get in here." She led them into her building, up several floors, and into a bright, spacious three-bedroom condominium.

"Cleaner than I expected," said Dolls.

Wynonna rolled her eyes. "For that, you sleep on the floor. All right, grand tour. Kitchen, couch, TV, my bedroom, Haught's room, what would have been Dolls' room, bathroom, that's it." She pointed to each point of interest as she named it. "Come and go as you please, but if you wake me up they'll never find your bodies. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," said Nicole. She headed down the hall to her bedroom and found a bed already made, clean sheets and fluffy pillows. She flopped onto the bed and a subtle, pleasant detergent scent wafted around her. Something crinkled beneath her head. She fished out a note.

_I washed the sheets and made the bed for you. Sweet dreams! ~Waverly_

Nicole bit her lip, a feeble attempt to dam the smile flooding her cheeks. She lifted the note above her head, framed against the landscape of the ceiling, and read it again. Then she lowered her arm, pressing the note to her lips.

Something twinged in her memory: Shae, cheeks flushed, storming out of Nicole's apartment.

Nicole jerked upright, crumpling the note like a teenager caught red-handed in class. When the pounding of her heart abated, she smoothed out the note, folded it, and tucked it safely in her wallet.

* * *

They stopped by Waverly's house later that day, escorted by Wynonna. The house seemed different in the daylight, enmeshed in the greenery around it. Wynonna let herself inside. She hollered for Waverly, and her voice echoed.

Waverly's head popped around the wall that split the dining room and kitchen from the entryway. "You're here!" She reached Dolls first, flinging herself at him with a hug that left him bewildered but smiling. When Waverly turned her attention toward Nicole, her smile shone as bright as summer sun, warming Nicole from head to toe.

Then she paused. Her expression flickered, a radio slipping out of tune for just a moment. She sidled up to Nicole, letting herself be drawn into a hug so light Nicole wondered if she imagined it.

"I'm so glad you're back," said Waverly. Her face still glimmered with a smile, though Nicole felt like she was lying on the bed of a lake, that sunlit smile filtering through six feet of water.

"Everything okay, baby girl?" asked Wynonna, her eyebrows pulled into a tight crease.

"Of course, everything's fine. So, Nicole, we're going to meet the video team on location later, does that sound all right? I just thought it might be nice to hang out for a bit; it's been a while since we've all seen each other."

"That all sounds great," said Nicole. She tried to catch Waverly's eye, but every time she came close, Waverly's attention flitted away, a speck of dust dancing in the eddying air around Nicole's outstretched fingers.

"Who's the director?" asked Wynonna, slipping onto Waverly's couch and kicking her feet up on the coffee table.

Waverly sighed. "It's Mercedes Gardner."

"Yes! That's my bitch," said Wynonna. Every pair of eyes in the room turned toward her. She shrugged. "What? She's a bitch and I love her."

"Okay," said Waverly, rolling her eyes. "We don't have to leave for a little while, so settle in, feel free to look around. Can I get anyone anything to drink?"

"Whiskey," said Wynonna.

"It's 2 P.M.," said Waverly.

"Oh, right. Two whiskeys."

"Anyone else?"

"A glass of water is fine," said Dolls.

"Nicole?"

"Water's fine for me too."

Waverly turned on her heels and started walking toward the kitchen. Nicole followed her in. "Let me help, that's a lot of glasses."

"I have a tray, it's fine," said Waverly.

"Hey." They rounded the corner, out of sight of Dolls and Wynonna; Nicole caught Waverly's elbow. Waverly jerked away from Nicole's touch as though scalded.

Nicole snatched her hand back, shoving it into her pocket. "Sorry," she said.

"I'm fine," Waverly said, each word as clipped as her footsteps as she continued her march toward the kitchen.

Nicole hurried after her again. Waverly reached a hand up toward a cabinet, and as her fingers grasped the metal, Nicole's palm settled on her shoulder. At last, Waverly turned toward Nicole; her eyes met Nicole's for just a moment before dancing toward the floor.

"You keep saying that, but I don't think it's true," said Nicole. She let her fingers glide down Waverly's arm, catching her hand at the end and giving it a squeeze. "You can tell me. Whatever it is."

Waverly's head turned toward their joined hands; Nicole watched Waverly's shoulders rise and fall with each breath.

"I can't," said Waverly. "But if I could, I would." Her hand twisted in Nicole's, letting their fingers weave together. A breath snaked from her lungs, heavy and uneven. She lifted her eyes to Nicole's.

The smile on Waverly's face shook as she studied Nicole, wobbling like a tightrope walker. Nicole's fingers itched, eager to press against Waverly's jaw, to steady that smile so that it would never leave. She bit her lip instead.

Waverly's lips parted; she shook her head, then rocketed forward, lassoing Nicole in her arms. "Thank you for offering," she said, her words muffled by Nicole's shirt. "I'm sorry I'm being weird."

"You're not weird," said Nicole. "You're just... Waverly." Without thinking, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of Waverly's head; Waverly sighed and melted into her, so relaxed that Nicole was sure that if she let go, Waverly would run through her fingers like so much sand.

"What did I do to deserve a friend like you?" mumbled Waverly.

Nicole chuckled. "You didn't have to do a damn thing except exist."

Waverly's hold on Nicole tightened, and when she finally pulled away the feel of her lingered, haunting Nicole like a ghost. "You're quite the dangerous sweet-talker, Nicole Haught," said Waverly, her cheeks dusted pink. She dragged herself away and started hunting for glasses in her cabinets.

Nicole watched her go, steadying herself on the cool stone countertop. Under her breath, she whispered, "I think you're the dangerous one, Waverly Earp."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been hammering this chapter into shape for a while. Still not thrilled with it, but hopefully it's doing its job: letting us all take a breather, stretch a bit and get a drink before we keep climbing Plot Mountain. Dramatic, sexy emptying of your water bottle over your head is encouraged at this time.
> 
> There's a bit of a problem with all the chapters after this. Despite being the one who typed each and every goddamn word, every time I go to do some editing, I just start reading! Sitting there, scrolling through my drafts like "oh Nicole, what trouble are you headed for now?" when I know _full damn well_ about the music-loving aliens in Chapter 16 and the giant pop star-robot battle finale.
> 
> Next week: Haught gets caught.
> 
> Find me learning how to be human [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	12. Chapter 12

Nicole stood in front of the high school, hands on her hips.

"Is this right?" She glanced over her shoulder at Waverly, who was clambering out of Nedley's car.

Waverly came to a rest next to Nicole. "This is the address Jeremy gave me," she said. "Prom video, do you think?"

"Isn't that kind of... overdone?" Nicole's nose wrinkled.

"It's cute," said Waverly. "Plus, it's going to have two women in it, and I don't think that can ever be overdone."

Before Nicole could reply, Jeremy burst through the front doors. "Finally, you're here. Come on, she's waiting for you."

He waved for them to follow; Waverly gave Nicole a little half smile then hurried after him. He led them down several hallways and through another set of doors into the gymnasium.

A woman stood on the other side of the gym at the center of a swarm of assistants. With each flick of her wrist, she sent them buzzing away on whatever task she had assigned them. At the sound of Jeremy's pattering feet, she turned to regard the new arrivals; Nicole met her eyes and goosebumps broke out up and down her arms.

They drew closer. Nicole stuck out her hand to shake and Mercedes barely looked at it before crossing her arms and studying Nicole like she was a work of art on display.

"I can work with this," she said, gesturing at Nicole's entire being. It was the first thing anyone had said since they walked in; every other person in the room let out the breaths they'd collectively been holding.

"O-oh?" said Nicole. She glanced over her shoulder at Waverly, who had wrapped her arms around herself and was trying and failing to hide a giggle behind her hand.

"Do you own a suit?" Mercedes had started pacing around Nicole, looking her up and down. Her heels echoed off the waxed hardwood floor.

"Can't say that I do."

Mercedes snapped her fingers, and two assistants wheeled over a rack of clothes. They brandished a jacket at Nicole and forced her into it. The sleeves fell past her wrists.

"No," said Mercedes. The assistants stripped the jacket from Nicole and jerked another one onto her. It stretched so tight around Nicole's shoulders that her arms snapped out to her sides like a scarecrow.

"Ugh, worse," said Mercedes. "Fuck it, we'll get you a tailored suit. One of my assistants can take you to get fitted."

"I can take her," said Waverly, as Nicole massaged her man-handled shoulders. Nicole and Mercedes both turned to look at her. "If that's okay. I just thought maybe going with a friend would be less awkward?"

"That sounds great to me," said Nicole.

"It literally doesn't matter who goes with her," said Mercedes, "as long as you get the suit on time. Who's your assistant?"

Dolls raised his hand, and Mercedes' assistants swarmed him and Jeremy.

"They'll sort it out," said Mercedes. She turned, taking in the gym with narrowed, calculating eyes. "Now, let's talk about my vision. Are you bitches ready to play lovers?"

Waverly choked on her own tongue. Nicole's jaw dropped like an anchor. "Uhhhh...?" she said.

"What kind of video is this going to be?" said Waverly, fighting to regain her power of speech.

"God, not like that," said Mercedes, rolling her eyes. "You'll have to look at each other like you want to bang, maybe dance together a bit. Do you two actually like each other? Or do you hate each others' guts? I need to know before you start a catfight in front of the extras."

"We're friends," said Nicole, glancing at Waverly. "And that all sounds fine to me. I think we're pretty comfortable together."

"We are," said Waverly, nudging Nicole's arm with her own.

"Good. Here's what I'm thinking." Mercedes spread her hands in the air to set her tableau. "High school dance. You'll play three parts: teenagers, the chaperones, and the band.

"The teenagers will be super into each other, but won't do anything about it. The chaperones will spend the night making goo-goo eyes at each other, then slow dance together when the gym is empty. It'll be really fucking cute."

"And the band?" asked Nicole.

"That's just there for some spice. Get up on stage and look like you're having a good time. We can't have a WAVES video without WAVES singing. Plus, you're going to look hot in a suit with your guitar."

For a moment, Nicole and Waverly both studied the gym. In her mind's eye, Nicole watched herself and Waverly sway together in the center of the floor, faces turned toward each other; Waverly cradled Nicole's face in her hands, rose on her tiptoes, let her eyes flutter closed...

Waverly cleared her throat. Nicole's eyes snapped to her. She found herself the subject of study, Waverly's eyes roaming her face and her teeth working her bottom lip.

Nicole flushed right to the tips of her ears.

"I think it sounds great," said Waverly, shaking her head and dissolving whatever had bubbled up between them. "It'll be a lot of fun."

Nicole let her thoughts clear, let the image of the dancing couple fade away until she was back in reality: assistants hurrying about, Dolls and Jeremy bent together over paperwork, Waverly Earp's smile sparkling like the sky on a clear, dark night.

She matched Waverly's smile with one of her own. "I'm looking forward to it."

* * *

Perhaps inspired by—or in fear of—Mercedes Gardner, Dolls and Jeremy scheduled an appointment for Nicole with a tailor before Mercedes finished running them through her vision.

Waverly made small talk with Nedley as he drove them to the tailor. Nedley talked more than Nicole had ever seen before, smiling and laughing at everything Waverly had to say. She watched them—watched Waverly, rather—and only noticed she was staring when she glanced at Nedley and found him regarding her in the mirror.

When they reached the tailor, Waverly led the way. After a few moments' discussion, Nicole found herself herded into a dressing room and being handed several articles of clothing: shirt, pants, jacket, shoes. She dressed herself, hoping that she was tucking everything in properly, then headed back out into the showroom.

Immediately, she sought out Waverly, who had taken a seat on a bench with a great view of the fitting area. Nicole tugged on the lapels of her jacket and ran her fingers through her hair. "What do you think?"

Waverly's eyes swept over Nicole, from shoulders to chest to hips to feet. They jumped back to meet Nicole's, and she gaped like a fish out of water for a moment before slamming her mouth shut. Heat bubbled in the pit of Nicole's stomach; Waverly's cheeks burned like the last gasp of a sunset.

"That's not tailored?" said Waverly, crossing and uncrossing her legs. "It fits you so well."

"I just put on what he gave me," said Nicole. The tailor, who had been puttering around in a drawer, returned and maneuvered Nicole in front of the mirrors. Nicole let herself be pushed and pulled like a lump of clay in a sculptor's hands, and while the tailor fussed with the suit, she studied herself.

It fit her. Not perfectly yet—the seat of the pants hugged her a bit too tight and her arms swam in the sleeves—but it sketched an outline that agreed with her.

She chanced a look at Waverly in the mirror and found her staring, her eyes once again skimming Nicole's curves and edges. The longer Nicole watched Waverly, the broader was the grin spreading on her lips. She chuckled. "Hey, my eyes are up here, Earp."

Waverly jumped in her seat, meeting Nicole's gaze. "I was just, um... inspecting the fit."

"Yeah? Any suggestions?"

"No, no suggestions. It, um, it looks good. Maybe it's a little... a little tight? In... places. But it looks like like he has things well in hand." Waverly made a fluttering gesture toward the tailor, who looked from her to Nicole and back again, then rolled his eyes.

"Do I look good in it?"

"Define good," said Waverly, playing with the hem of her shirt.

"Let me put it this way, are all of the girls out there going to fall in love with me when they see our video?"

Nicole was sure she heard Waverly mutter something that sounded like, "they better not," but the official answer she got was, "um, maybe. I thought you were done with dating?"

The tailor stepped away from Nicole, done with his work, and she shrugged the jacket off of her shoulders, leaving her in just a white dress shirt. She watched Waverly watch her, followed Waverly's gaze as it rolled down the valley between her shoulder blades and over the stretch of her muscles beneath the fabric.

"I did say that, didn't I? Well, I might have been hasty," said Nicole. She turned to face Waverly, undoing the button on her collar. Waverly's throat bobbed; Nicole felt a hook behind her belly button, drawing her as taut as a bowstring.

Ushered back into the dressing room by the tailor, she changed into her regular clothes and handed the rest of the suit back to him. Outside, she found Waverly still waiting on the bench. Nicole kicked the floor with her toe. "Hey, Waves? What about you?"

Waverly squinted at her. "What about me?"

"It's been a while since you broke up with Champ... are you...?"

"Oh. No, no dates for me. Maybe if the right person catches my eye..." Their eyes met again, and the string in Nicole's gut drew even tighter. "Why did you break up with Shae?"

Nicole's eyebrows shot toward the sky. "I thought you couldn't talk about this with me?"

"I might have been hasty, saying that," said Waverly, trying to fight back a smile.

"I guess we were both a little hasty on that phone call."

"Apparently," said Waverly. "So? Why did you break up with her?"

"Aren't you persistent?" Nicole sat on the bench next to Waverly, letting their knees knock together. "The obvious answer is that she asked me to marry her and I said no. There's not really any coming back from that."

"She... wow." Waverly hung her hand on Nicole's shoulder. "That must have been hard. I'm sorry."

"The thing is," said Nicole, "it really wasn't. Everything leading up to it was hard. Ending it was... I mean, it sucked, but I think that was the easiest part."

Waverly's hand squeezed Nicole's shoulder tighter.

"I know it sounds pretty awful." Nicole chuckled mirthlessly. "But I think it was a long time coming. She wanted things from me that I couldn't give her. I tried, but... it would have meant giving up a life I loved and I... I guess... I guess I didn't love her enough to do that for her."

Waverly leaned into Nicole, her hand slipping across Nicole's back to grip her other shoulder. "Hey, you can't blame yourself. You loved her. Maybe... maybe you still do. And part of loving someone is knowing you can't force them to be something they're not. You couldn't make Shae stay and she couldn't make you go. And as sad as I am that you won't be moving closer to me, I really can't imagine you being happy here."

"No?"

"Not really. I look at you," said Waverly, leaning away from Nicole to take her in fully, "and I see you scaling a mountain somewhere. Wearing a toque, maybe. Your face is all red from the cold. You get to the top and you look down and you hear new songs starting to form in your mind. Then you smile that big, bright smile of yours, and you just seem... so alive. That's what I see when I think about you, perfectly happy."

As Waverly spoke, Nicole felt every one of the thousands of kilometers separating her from her home like an elastic cord around her chest, pulling her back where she belonged. As Waverly finished, she wondered what it would be like to climb down from that mountain, drive home, and find Waverly there waiting for her.

Fingers brushed Nicole's knee; she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Hey, you all right?" asked Waverly. She squeezed, and the firm touch pulled Nicole back into herself. "You got really quiet all of a sudden."

"Just thinking," said Nicole. She shook her head. "I really wish we lived closer. You ever think about leaving?"

"Sometimes, but not seriously. I like the weather and the beaches. My job's here. Wynonna's here." Waverly shrugged. "The only other place I really want to be is home and that's... complicated. I wouldn't know where else to go."

"You could go anywhere," said Nicole. "Anywhere you wanted."

"That's the problem," said Waverly. She rose from the bench. "Sure, it might be nice living somewhere else. But it's nice the way the thought of taking up painting or joining a book club is nice. I have so many good reasons to stay here. I'd need to really want to go."

Standing above Nicole, watching Nicole, Waverly bit her lip. Then she freed it, and the hint of a smile replaced her teeth. "I think I'd be happy to keep living here. But... it might be nice to find something I want so much, I have to leave. Maybe someday I'll find something like that."

"I hope you find it," said Nicole, "wherever it leads you."

The thought fluttered through Nicole's mind like a butterfly that if Waverly ever found something like that, Nicole wanted it to be her.

* * *

Nicole returned to Wynonna's apartment to find her host pacing in the living room, arguing with someone on the phone. It sounded personal, so she tuned it out as much as possible. She slipped past Wynonna and down the hall, sidling into Dolls' room. He looked up, caught sight of her face and sighed. "What now?"

"I keep flirting with Waverly." Nicole dropped onto his bed, punctuating her statement with a chorus of squeaking springs. She'd left the tailor floating on a cloud, but after Nedley had brought Waverly home, that cloud had turned into a downpour, pelting Nicole with every reason a relationship with Waverly would never work.

Dolls harrumphed. "You can't help yourself where she's concerned."

"I just got out of a relationship," said Nicole. "I can't... It's not like Waverly's the reason Shae and I broke up, but I was already..."

Her head fell into her hands and she took a shaky breath. Dolls sat as still as a statue while she gathered her composure.

"It feels wrong to break up with Shae and try to start something with Waverly so soon."

"Never mind that you live thousands of kilometers apart... and you just learned the risks of dropping everything and uprooting your life for a girl."

"Exactly." Nicole rubbed the back of her neck. "But every time we're together, she smiles at me and I feel like I'm falling apart."

Someone made a retching sound from the doorway; Wynonna rolled in, arms crossed. "I wish I'd known what a huge sap you are, Haught. I wouldn't have wasted my time thinking you were cool."

"How much of that did you hear?" asked Nicole, a shudder rolling through her like a freight train.

"Enough to know you've got it bad for my baby sister." Wynonna sat on Dolls' desk, his papers crumpling under her ass. He glared at her. She ignored him, still focused on Nicole. "Dude, go get laid. Find some hot chick and get it out of your system."

"I don't really do casual sex," said Nicole.

"Well, you're so not sleeping with Waverly, so it's either hook up with a random or suffer eternal torment. Your choice."

With a groan, Nicole flopped back on the bed. "No offense, but you're really not the person I wanted to talk to about this."

"Tough titty, Romeo. Or are you Juliet? Ugh, whatever, you're the one having this conversation with the door wide open in my friggin' home. And I don't want to deal with you moping all over the place. So?"

"So what?"

"You want to go out? Get wasted? I'll be your wing woman, find some babe for you to mack on."

Dolls shook his head. "No getting wasted. I'm not playing nurse again."

Wynonna rolled her eyes. "Fine. So how about pleasantly buzzed, Mr. Buzzkill?"

"I didn't know you were aware of the concept of moderation."

"I moderate just fine, thank you very much."

"Please stop flirting." Nicole covered her face with her hands. "Please. I'll go out, wherever you want to go, just make it stop."

* * *

A blond girl in skin-tight pants pressed her ass against Nicole, one hand reaching up and over her shoulder to keep Nicole's lips glued to the side of her neck. Nicole's fingers splayed over the girl's stomach, the side of her thumb brushing the underwire ridge beneath the girl's shirt. The music pulsed through them and they swayed at its command.

The girl's name was Kelsey. Or Lacey. Or Maisie. Aware of Dolls' watchful eye, Nicole had avoided getting too drunk, but this girl's name still escaped her. She let one of her hands move lower, to the thin strip of exposed skin between shirt and pants, and Lacey or Kelsey or Maisie gasped.

Nicole wondered, as Maisie grabbed Nicole's wandering hand and forced her fingers just beneath the waistband of her pants, if this was any better than flirting with Waverly. She lifted her head from Kelsey's neck to find Wynonna dancing nearby, giving her two thumbs up and yelling some unintelligible encouragement over the beat.

Lacey turned her head toward Nicole, tried to drag Nicole's face toward hers, and Nicole decided this was definitely worse than flirting helplessly with Waverly. This was just wrong. "Sorry," she muttered, then ripped her hands away and staggered through the crowd and out of the club.

She cursed the balmy California weather, wishing for wind that stung her skin, for cold that rattled her bones. She leaned against the building's stone facade and let that cool her skin, instead.

After a few deep breaths, the door of the club opened, and for a moment the street was filled with pounding music and people shouting. Then the door swung closed and left her with only the rush of cars on the street and Wynonna's silent disapproval.

"What?" said Nicole. "I told you, I don't do casual."

"You're thinking about my sister and it's making me want to vomit."

"I like her," said Nicole. "I like her a lot, okay? She's smart and funny and kind and—"

Wynonna doubled over, one hand to her mouth and one on her stomach. "Oh, god, I think... I think I'm gonna hurl." She staggered toward the wall, bracing herself next to Nicole, then stood up straight, her face just inches from Nicole's. "Nope, false alarm. Just like all of this... stuff with Waverly."

"I don't think it is," said Nicole, her skin prickling.

"It better be. Waverly is _not_ your rebound girl." Wynonna jabbed a finger into Nicole's sternum, and Nicole knocked her hand away. Something buzzed in Wynonna's pocket; she stepped back and fished out her phone. Her expression shifted, and she looked like a child who was about to be scolded.

Nicole kicked the wall. "Is that her?"

"Fuck, I wish." Wynonna answered the call. "What?" She pressed her lips together as the person on the other line talked. "No, she's not. I'm not her fucking babysitter."

Nicole watched the cars pass by. Wynonna ground her teeth. "She's not coming home. Okay? And I'm—hell no, I'm not going to talk her out of it. You—hey, no! Maybe if you stopped calling her when she told you not to—no. No! You gave that up when you walked out on us, remember?"

At that, Nicole whipped her own phone out of her pocket, opening app after app, trying to distract herself from the half-conversation in front of her and failing miserably. Wynonna had her head bowed, one hand propped on her hip, and the tassels of her leather jacket spilled from her sleeve like a waterfall.

"I did," said Wynonna, her sharp tone dissipating like a can of pop gone flat. "Mama, I did. But Waves isn't me. She's allowed to have different feelings about it. And it isn't my place to get her to think differently."

A smile settled on Wynonna's lips."I was the big sister. I had to be. Hey, I'm out with some friends right now, I gotta go."

"Everything okay?" asked Nicole.

Wynonna stared at the blank screen of her phone. Then she shook her head and she was all edges again, razor-tongued and sharp-eyed. "Just my mom. If you don't know about it, it means Waverly hasn't told you, and I'm sure as shit not telling you about it."

"You could, if you wanted." Nicole shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

"Uh, talking to you about my fee-fees is the last thing I want to do. You know what I do want? More whiskey. But you're still thinking about my sister."

"You can go get your whiskey."

"Nuh-uh. If I do that, I'm gonna forget all about this whole situation and try to climb Dolls like a tree. So what's it gonna be, Haught?"

"I can't just stop liking her."

"No one can, that's her superpower. Look, dude, I'm asking for something real simple, here. You're damaged goods right now. Until you get your shit together and Sexy Shae is a distant memory, just be her friend. She deserves better than your confused ass." Wynonna waggled her cellphone in the air. "As you clearly just heard, she's dealing with enough bullshit as it is."

Nicole let her head tip back against the wall, stared up at the empty sky, and sighed. "I have a sneaking suspicion that you're right."

"I'm always right. Okay, great talk. Whiskey time?"

"Sure, whiskey time."

Wynonna hooted with glee, then grabbed Nicole by the wrist and dragged her back into the club. She made her way to the bar and got her whiskey, and more whiskey on top of that. They wandered to the dance floor again, and Wynonna tried to push Nicole onto pretty girls, winking each time. Nicole dodged them all, and soon Wynonna lost interest and chased after Dolls instead.

Nicole let her go, then found a seat at the bar. She ordered a beer.

"You know this is more of a shots and dancing type of place, right?" shouted the bartender as she slid the beer to Nicole on a limp paper napkin.

Nicole took a quick sip of her drink. "I'm not a shots and dancing type of girl."

"Yeah?" The bartender quirked an eyebrow. "What kind of girl are you?"

Nicole wrinkled her nose. "Was that... are you flirting with me?"

"Depends. Will you tip me better if I am?"

"Probably, yeah."

The bartender shrugged. "Then I was flirting with you. So? What kind of girl are you?"

Nicole leaned forward on her elbows, peering down the bar to scan the crowd snapping their fingers and waving money to get the bartender's attention. "They seem really impatient."

"They're being rude, so they can wait. Are you gonna answer the question, Red, or do I have to wait for your fifth beer?"

"Two beers max for me tonight. And I'm..." Nicole took another sip, tapping the neck of the bottle against her lips. "I'm the kind of girl who falls for all the wrong people. But it's my last night being that girl. Tomorrow, I'm just going to be a good friend."

The bartender laughed. "Oh, boy. Good luck with that."

"Thanks," said Nicole, as the bartender finally disappeared to serve the other patrons. "I think I'm gonna need it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truth time: this whole fic exists because I had a vision of Nicole Haught in a suit.
> 
> Also, wow, we're halfway through this thing! That's incredible. The back half of this is my favorite part. If no one else ever read this fic, it truly would have been worth writing just for the last third or so.
> 
> Next week: a test of resolve.
> 
> Chat with me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws), if you like.


	13. Chapter 13

As soon as Nicole and Dolls stepped foot on the high school campus the next day, Mercedes' assistants swarmed Nicole and practically frog-marched her into the building.

"Costuming first," said one. "Then hair and makeup."

"Can I finish my—" said Nicole, but someone snatched the coffee out of her hands just as she brought it to her mouth. "Dolls?"

"You'll be fine," he shouted, his voice growing fainter and fainter as they dragged her around the corner. "I promise!"

The costuming department turned out to be a classroom with the desks and chairs pushed aside to make room for several racks of clothing. Someone dropped a pile of clothes into Nicole's arms, then she was ushered behind a curtain. She inspected each item before she donned it: a pair of beige slacks, a too-big button-up shirt, a thick cable-knit sweater with leather patches over the elbows.

Hair and makeup came next. In another room, they'd set up a row of chairs and vanities. Hair was easy, as they pulled it back into a half ponytail and let it be otherwise. As the makeup artist settled in front of her, ready to begin, Waverly entered the room and took the seat next to Nicole.

"You look... different," said Waverly, making only a cursory effort to hide her laugh.

"This must be for the 'chaperone' part of the video," said Nicole. She glanced down at herself, and the makeup artist clucked her tongue, grabbed Nicole's chin and forced her head back up.

"Yeah, this really isn't my style." Waverly gestured at herself: she wore a pale blue blouse, a boxy skirt, clunky shoes, and a lopsided cardigan. "I think they're going for the stern librarian look?"

"And I'm... I don't know, the chemistry teacher?" Nicole chuckled. "I've looked better."

"I think you look cute," said Waverly, hiding a smile behind her fingers. Nicole's stomach plunged like the first drop on a roller coaster.

"Oh," she said. "Thanks, you look good, too." She met Waverly's eyes in the mirror, smiled quickly, then turned her attention back to her own reflection.

Waverly fidgeted next to her, drawing an irritated huff from her makeup artist. Nicole made a fist and rapped her knees with her knuckles. "So... how much input do you usually get into your music videos?" She glanced at Waverly's reflection, swallowing at the sight of raised eyebrows.

"It depends on the director, I guess. Some are more open to collaboration. Mercedes picked my brain a bit when she was hired, but everything else is up to her."

Nicole hummed. "So you had nothing to do with how cute and gay this video is going to be?"

"I might have told her it was really important to me to make something cute and romantic and not sad and gloomy."

"Good," said Nicole. "We need more of that."

Waverly hummed in agreement as a hairstylist started pulling her hair back into a severe bun. "So, looking forward to our dance?"

Nicole took a breath like running a knife over a whetstone. "What?"

"Our dance." Waverly glanced at her in the mirror, then away. Something hid in the depths of her eyes, in the curve of her mouth. "As the chaperones. After prom."

"O-oh." Nicole contorted her face into what she hoped was a smile. "Yeah, it should be fun. Sorry if I step on your toes."

"I'm sure it'll be fine. Slow dances are just hugs in motion. I happen to know you're an excellent hugger." Done with her styling, she stood and waited for Nicole to follow.

Nicole craned her neck to look at Waverly standing over her. She recalled hugging Waverly for the first time in the hallway of the studio. She'd just met Champ. She'd still been with Shae.

"You okay?" asked Waverly, one arm crossed over herself to rub at the other. "You seem kind of out of it today."

"I had a late night," said Nicole. "And they took my coffee away."

Who needed solar power when Waverly Earp's smile existed? "Aw, poor baby," said Waverly, and she offered Nicole her hand. "Come on. Let's go find you a coffee before Mercedes gets her claws in us."

Nicole looked at the hand, the upturned palm, the delicate wrist. _Friends_ , she thought. _What a goddamn tightrope_.

She accepted Waverly's hand just long enough to be hauled to her feet. Her hand felt cold when she let go.

* * *

After finding coffee, they followed the murmur of voices to the gym. They waded into a sea of extras: young people in suits and dresses, paired up, scattered throughout the room. Before anyone had a chance to gawk at WAVES, Mercedes accosted Waverly and Nicole and took them aside.

"Here," she said, handing Nicole a pair of thick-rimmed black glasses. "So, you probably guessed from your frankly disgusting clothes that we'll be starting with the chaperone sequence. We'll only be doing part of it today, but let's walk through it again."

They followed her around the room, taking notes of the marks on the floor. When they reached the center of the gym, Mercedes stopped. "This is where you'll have to dance together," she said. "Do you want to get the giggles out of the way now or later?"

"I'll be serious," said Waverly. "Nicole will be, too." She reached out, clasped Nicole's hand, and gave it a tiny shake. Nicole let the shake break Waverly's hold and ignored the confused little pout that earned her.

Mercedes crossed her arms. "You're going to giggle. Okay? You're going to stand there in each other's arms and get embarrassed and giggle and I'm going to stand there rolling my eyes, waiting for it to be over."

"We can deal with that later," said Nicole. "I'd rather just get started." She glanced at Waverly, managing a weak smile.

So they began. Mercedes arranged them across the gym from each other. Snippets of their song played, the extras danced, and Nicole paced from Point A to Point B. A camera swept past her; Nicole had been instructed to cast nervous, longing glances in the camera's direction.

After several attempts, Mercedes snapped. "Nicole, you hot, gangly mess. Look at the camera like you're in love with it." She massaged her temples. "Not like it's stalking you."

"Sorry," said Nicole. She drew her hands up into the bulky sleeves of her sweater, trying to wipe her sweating palms without anyone noticing.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" asked Mercedes. "Some gorgeous bitch you can picture?"

"Only an ex," said Nicole, frowning.

"Okay, any celebs you'd bone if you had the chance? Or some straight girl you had the hots for in high school? Work with me, here."

Nicole felt Waverly's eyes on her like needles at the base of her skull. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I've got someone like that." She wouldn't look at Waverly. She _would not_ look at Waverly.

She looked at Waverly.

Nicole felt sure that every bit of her was being studied as though under a microscope; every twitch of her lips, every shift in her gaze, every tremble of her fingers was being examined, documented, and interpreted.

She wanted to smile. But as her muscles began to move, a quiver overtook them. She pressed her lips together instead, looked away, and took a deep, unsteady breath.

"Maybe if someone walked with the camera?" asked Waverly, and Nicole's eyes snapped to her again like iron to a magnet. Waverly crossed to the camera, flashed the operator a smile, and stood next to it. "Nicole? Look at me, okay?"

"Imagine Waverly is the babe you're totes crushing on," said Mercedes, helpfully. Nicole wanted to bang her skull against a wall.

Nicole swallowed, nodded several times, and let out the breath she'd been holding. "Okay," she said. "I've got this."

They repeated the scene. Nicole walked from mark to mark, looking over her shoulder at the woman trailing the camera. She waded up to the gate damming her emotions, seized its crank and hurled her weight against it. Her feelings frothed, streaming free. She felt her face shift, her eyes crinkle, her teeth test the padding of her lip every time she looked at Waverly, every time those feelings bubbled like a fresh spring.

 _Acting_ , she thought.  _This is acting._

When it was Waverly's turn, Nicole took her position without thinking. Waverly turned. Their eyes met.

The floor opened up under Nicole. Her lungs burned like she'd just climbed a wintry peak. Waverly Earp stood there, looking at Nicole like she'd never wanted anything more in her entire life.

"God, if I wasn't straight, I'd kiss her," said Mercedes, suddenly beside Nicole as Waverly finished a take. Nicole grabbed her chest to keep her heart from leaping out of it. Mercedes ignored her. "Look at her. She really looks like she wants to make out with you. Eat your heart out, Lady Gaga, WAVES is the real triple threat."

Nicole really, _really_ wanted to drive her skull through a wall.

* * *

After the first part of filming, Mercedes sent them for a costume change. The second costume turned out to be her suit. She unzipped the garment bag and ran her fingers over the fabric, the buttons, the stitching. Each piece fit like a glove, and when she stepped out from behind the curtain, Dolls gave her an approving nod.

Her makeup only required some touching up; they let her hair down and artfully tousled it. As soon as she walked into the gym, Mercedes beckoned her closer, then grabbed her tie and tugged it loose.

She was directed to the stage at one end of the gym, where a drum kit and several microphones had been set up. She found her guitar waiting for her. As she tuned it, Waverly returned.

Nicole's fingers slipped on the guitar strings. Waverly stopped dead in her tracks. From across the gym, they stared at each other, and Nicole was glad for the distance, relieved that Waverly couldn't see her sputtering like a stalled engine.

Waverly's outfit sparkled: heels that made her calves pop; a skirt that showed off too much leg for Nicole's weak constitution; a varsity jacket on the losing end of a battle with a glitter cannon. Nicole felt her jaw drop and couldn't muster the strength to reel it back in.

The blush on Waverly's cheeks: was that from her makeup?

It had to be.

"You look amazing," whispered Nicole, as Waverly climbed up to the stage.

Waverly bit her lip. "So do you. I, um... you'll have to thank Mercedes for that suit. It's perfect." She reached out, hooked one finger in Nicole's pocket, and gave it a tug.

Mercedes' voice rang out from below. "Okay, bitches, enough chit-chat. Your job is to look like sexy beasts and act like this is a real show while you're at it, got it? I don't care if you really sing or play, just do whatever looks good. And I want everyone else dancing like this is the best song you've ever heard in your life!"

Their song poured out of the speakers, and Nicole joined it, letting her fingers fly over the strings of her guitar in time with it. As though the music was a puppeteer and she its puppet, she started to move.

Next to her, Waverly leaned into her mic. Over the speakers, Nicole caught flashes of her voice as she sang. Her hands fluttered. Her eyes fell closed. Nicole watched her, leaning into her own mic when it was her turn to sing. At one point, she looked up to see Waverly smirking at her; Nicole let her lips curl into a grin.

Mercedes made them play through the song a few times with little direction other than "you're doing great, you beautiful lesbians." By the time Mercedes called for a break, Nicole had broken out in a sweat and Waverly—who had switched to lip synching after two takes—was chugging a bottle of water like her life depended on it.

"It's almost as bad as a show," said Waverly, when she came up for air. The extras all wandered to another classroom in search of the catering. Waverly sat on the edge of the stage, her feet dangling above the floor. Her heels bounced off of the platform, echoing in the suddenly empty gym.

"Almost as bad," said Nicole. She joined Waverly, unbuttoning her jacket. "So much weirder, though."

"You get used to it," said Waverly. She kicked her heels back and forth. "Did you have a big senior dance at your school?"

"A grad formal. It was a nightmare," said Nicole. "My girlfriend and I couldn't go together, so she went with one of our guy friends and I went alone. Except they told me at the door I couldn't go in without a date. Plenty of guys went stag, but they knew I was really there to be with her. I ended up having to call my parents to pick me up. They aren't the most reliable people. I sat outside alone for an hour and a half waiting for them."

Waverly fiddled with the necklace at her throat. "Your girlfriend didn't stay with you?"

Nicole shrugged. "I learned a lot about her and the rest of my friends that day. Enough about that, though. What about you?" She leaned back on her hands, the tips of her fingers just brushing the puddle of Waverly's skirt.

"I didn't go," said Waverly.

"What, really?" Nicole nudged Waverly's foot with her own. "I find that hard to believe."

Waverly bundled her hands in her lap, wringing her fingers. "That was the year I signed with the label. And there was a lot going on at home. Stuff like school, dances, dating... I wasn't really thinking about any of it."

"What was going on at home?" asked Nicole.

A muscle twitched in Waverly's jaw; Nicole sat bolt upright. "You don't have to tell me," she said. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No, it's fine." Waverly's hand darted toward Nicole's knee and stopped, hovering an inch away. She curled her fingers into a loose fist and let them bounce a few times on the stage. "I want to tell you. That was when Mama came home. She, um. When I was little, she left with her boyfriend. She didn't even come home when Daddy died."

Waverly stared at her toes, her eyes losing focus. "She came back my junior year. It was a lot. Too much. The label said they wanted to sign me. I left as fast as I could. I haven't been back since."

As Waverly spoke, her bouncing fist tightened. As she fell silent, her nails dug into her palm. Nicole's fingertips settled against Waverly's wrist, as delicate as a summer breeze. They slipped upward, covering the rock of Waverly's fist.

"I'm so sorry that happened to you," said Nicole. Her thumb painted gentle strokes over Waverly's bone-white knuckles. With each caress, Waverly's muscles relaxed. Her hand fell open, and their fingers drifted together.

Like a rusted gear, Waverly turned to Nicole: eyes wide, lips parted, breaths short. "I've never told anyone about that," she said. "I can't believe I..."

Catching sight of their joined hands, Waverly's face contorted. She looked up at Nicole, her eyebrows still digging troughs in her skin, her lips pulled into a contemplative frown.

Her eyes fell closed. She lifted the tangle of their fingers to her lips, paused, and kissed the back of Nicole's hand. As she did, she opened her eyes and found Nicole. Their gazes held, puzzle pieces falling into place.

Waverly melted into a smile.

"Thanks for listening," she said. She let their hands fall apart, and it was all Nicole could do not to hold her own hand to her chest like it was precious cargo.

"Any time," Nicole. "Really. I'm... I'm your friend, you know?"

Waverly pushed herself to her feet and smoothed out her skirt. "I know," she said. Her hands paused; Nicole craned her neck to watch her. "Do you think you—"

A cluster of extras banged through the doors of the gym, and in a matter of seconds the space was filled with the buzz of happy, well-fed young people. Nicole shot to her feet. "What were you—"

"You're a bit wrinkled," said Waverly. Her hands reached up, settling on Nicole's shoulders and smoothing the folds of Nicole's jacket. Her fingers cruised down Nicole's arms. They brushed Nicole's open palms, then skipped away, leaving Nicole grasping at air.

"There," said Waverly, "good as new."

Mercedes called Waverly's name and Waverly slipped away. Nicole stood alone on the stage and watched her go. Her hand itched where Waverly's lips had touched it.

She pulled on her memory of Wynonna from the club, letting it repeat like a broken record.  _She deserves better._ It morphed into her own voice.  _She deserves better than me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waverly's sparkly outfit brought to you by long discussions with my wife and frantically googling various pop stars. IDK if it's good but this is what you're getting.
> 
> Next week: one surprise after another.
> 
> Sometimes I tweet and talk to people [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws).


	14. Chapter 14

The dance was coming. In a matter of moments, Nicole would have to stand in the center of an empty high school gym, wrap her arms around Waverly, and sway with her in front of several cameras, a horde of Mercedes' assistants, and Mercedes herself.

Not to mention Dolls, who seemed to sense something was wrong and had decided to let Nicole figure it out on her own.

Not to mention Wynonna, who said she was there to see her "favorite terrible person," but who Nicole suspected was watching her like a hawk.

Another day had arrived and they had moved on to the teenaged part of the video. Mercedes had them both in dresses: Waverly's hair had been swept up atop her head, Nicole's had been pinned back on one side and left loose on the other.

They'd filmed the lead up to the dance: Waverly, entering the gym with her male date; Nicole, joining the fray alone; Waverly, left speechless at the sight of Nicole.

Nicole stood on one side of the gym among several extras. Over and over, Waverly emerged from the crowd. She walked toward Nicole, her eyes full of curiosity and want. Then the actor playing her date stepped in her way, sweeping her back into the dance.

Each time, Nicole watched her go, holding her gaze until the last second.

"Perfect," said Mercedes. "Nicole, babe, you look like someone kicked your puppy and I. Love. It."

"Thanks, Mercedes," said Nicole, laughing despite the twinge in her jaw. "Need any more takes?"

Mercedes waved her away. "No, I think we've got it. Waverly!"

Waverly thanked her dance partner and joined Mercedes and Nicole. "Boss?"

"Ugh, I love you," said Mercedes. "Okay, we're done with the teenagers. You're getting back into the chaperone costumes but you'll have a little break while we clear the extras out. Then it's time for the dance scene."

"Looking forward to it," said Waverly. She took Nicole's hand and started tugging her toward the door. Instead of heading toward costuming, Waverly led her through the crowd of extras and into an unused part of the school.

"Where are we going?" asked Nicole, still clutching Waverly's hand. Waverly didn't answer, but slipped into an empty classroom and shut the door behind them.

"What's going on?" Nicole tried to ask, but the words were knocked out of her by Waverly colliding with her like a tiny cannonball. Waverly's arms encircled her. Nicole reacted automatically, draping her arms over Waverly's back in return. "Seriously, what's up?"

"Sorry," said Waverly into Nicole's chest. Nicole wondered if Waverly could hear her pounding heart. "I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you all day. Wynonna's been glued to me since we got here. I missed you."

Nicole kept her suspicions about Wynonna's sudden neediness to herself. "I missed you too," she said. She pulled away from Waverly and found a seat on a nearby desk, skeptical of her knees' ability to keep her upright.

To her dismay, Waverly followed her, filling the space in front of her. Waverly reached out, brushing Nicole's hair away from her face, and Nicole clutched the edge of the desk to keep herself from mimicking the gesture. "I've wanted to tell you all day, your hair looks so good like this."

Sirens went off in Nicole's head. She thought her fingers might snap if she gripped the desk any harder. "Thanks! You look—" _Beautiful. Gorgeous. Amazing._ "—great too. But Mercedes will probably kill us if we don't get changed soon. Want to head back?" As she spoke, she slipped off the desk and headed toward the door.

"Hey, wait," said Waverly. She let Nicole push past her; her words stopped Nicole in her tracks. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

Nicole ran her fingers through her hair. "You didn't. I'm—I'm just..."

"Is it Shae?" asked Waverly. Nicole stared at her for a heartbeat. She shook her head.

"No, it's not Shae. Not anymore, anyway." She crossed her arms over herself. "I went out with Wynonna and Dolls the other night."

"You did?" Waverly blinked. "Without me?"

"Yeah. Wynonna... we talked, and—"

The subject of Nicole's recollection burst into the room, shouting. "Sorry if you're naked!" She paused when she saw them, nonplussed. "Oh. The clothes are all the way on. Huh."

"Why would we be naked?" Waverly asked, her pitch rising. Nicole hoped her cheeks weren't as red as they felt. "And why would you just barge in if you thought we were?"

"I said sorry," said Wynonna, with a dismissive wave. "Old habit."

"I don't want to know, do I?" asked Nicole.

"No," said Wynonna and Waverly, simultaneously. Wynonna cleared her throat. "So, um, you're both supposed to be changing into your ugly clothes, according to Mercedes."

"Right," said Nicole. She stepped toward the door. "I guess we should get going. Waverly?"

"You go," said Waverly, never breaking eye contact with Wynonna. "I have to talk to my sister."

Nicole and Wynonna both gulped; Nicole hurried out of the room and power-walked away from the imminent explosion.

As she hurried down the hall, she heard Waverly screech, "what did you say to her?"

* * *

The gym lay empty, save for Waverly, Nicole, and the crew. Nicole stood by the refreshments table, tidying up. Waverly approached her, running her hand down Nicole's arm. At the touch, Nicole turned, pushing her glasses up her nose.

Waverly smiled. She held out her hand, and when Nicole took it, Waverly's smile exploded like a supernova. She led them onto the dance floor, past scattered streamers and sinking balloons. In the center of the floor, she draped her arms over Nicole's shoulders and began to sway.

Nicole gulped. She let her hands settle on Waverly's waist and followed her lead. When Waverly stepped closer and leaned her head on Nicole's shoulder, Nicole tightened her hold on Waverly. When Waverly's fingers found the soft hair at the nape of Nicole's neck, Nicole let her eyes flutter closed.

"Wynonna wouldn't tell me anything," whispered Waverly, when her lips were hidden from the camera. "I can feel you worrying, so you can stop now."

"I wasn't worried," said Nicole.

"She said it wasn't her place to tell, which was surprisingly considerate for Wynonna." Waverly nuzzled closer to Nicole. "You can tell me anything, you know."

"I know."

"Okay. I don't want to push."

"You're not." Nicole leaned back, looking down at Waverly. Waverly looked up, and her eyes glittered with reflected light. Nicole's expression softened. "I'll tell you later. I promise."

"Cut!" shouted Mercedes. "Girls. Hey. You're not supposed to talk to each other. Oh, whatever. That was great. Let's go again, okay? From the refreshments table."

They danced again, quieter this time. Nicole supposed that for the time being, they'd each said what they needed to say.

After a stroke of inspiration, Mercedes forced them back into their prom dresses one more time. "We'll cut between the adults and kids dancing," she said. "Like they're getting a re-do. It's so sweet, I'm going to vomit. I'm a friggin' genius." The hair and makeup artists grumbled, but re-did all of their earlier work.

Nicole and Waverly fell into their dance again; each time, it grew easier, as though their bodies had grown used to having each other there. "If you could re-do your formal," asked Waverly, mumbling against Nicole's collarbone, "is this what you'd wear?"

"I'd wear the suit," said Nicole, her breath tickling Waverly's ear. "Just to stick it to everyone who gave me a hard time for being gay. Plus, it looks really good on me."

"That's what I thought." Waverly lifted herself up on her toes, cupped one of Nicole's cheeks with her hand, and brushed a kiss against the other. "Go see Dolls after this, okay? And then come back here after."

Nicole pulled away from Waverly, a question on her lips. She was interrupted by Mercedes shouting, "cut! that's a wrap!"

The crew burst out in cheers; someone clapped Nicole on the back. Dolls gave her a brisk hug.

"Waverly told me to come see you," she said, when they pulled apart. "Do you know what that's about?"

"Follow me," he said. He led her out of the gym and back to the costume area. Her suit hung on one of the racks, a placard pinned to the garment bag.

_For the best dance partner I could ever ask for.  
~Waverly_

"She convinced the studio to give it to you," said Dolls. "They probably would have anyway, since it's tailored to you. But I couldn't tell her that."

Nicole held the note in both hands; it started to quiver. "How the hell can one person be so... so..." She fell back against the wall with a sigh, both hands buried in her hair, still clutching the card. "I'm a mess."

"Yeah," he said. She glared at him. He shrugged. "She likes you, though. Mess and all."

Nicole carefully folded the note into quarters. "She deserves better than me. We're going home soon. I can hold on until then."

"Whatever you say. First, you've got to put that suit on."

She stared at him. "What?"

He laughed. "Sorry, Haught. She's not done with you yet."

* * *

When Nicole stepped out from behind her privacy curtain, bedecked in her suit, she found Dolls waiting in a suit of his own.

"What are you doing?" she asked, with a look of dawning horror. "Dolls?"

"Come on," he said, beckoning her closer. She stayed rooted to the spot. He rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to offer you my arm or anything. Just follow me."

So she did. He led her back to the gym; when they entered, she blinked in surprise to see a crowd of people waiting. Mercedes stood near the front, as did Wynonna; Mercedes had changed into a dress and Wynonna hadn't changed at all. Waverly stepped toward Nicole, still in her prom dress, wearing a nervous smile.

"You told me how terrible your formal was," she said, wringing her hands. "And we've been doing this video and I thought we'd never have an opportunity like this again. So I went around to everyone who helped us make this video and asked if they'd want to come back and help me throw you a real party."

"Sorry for the homophobia!" shouted someone in the back.

Nicole let out a choking laugh, wiping tears from her eyes. A ripple of laughter echoed through the crowd. "How are you real?" she asked Waverly. Waverly shrugged, though she beamed like it was her job to turn night into day.

"Come on, silly," she said, and she took both of Nicole's hands and led her into the crowd as music started to play. "It's time to dance."

* * *

They all danced together, a group of adults filling a high school gymnasium. In the center, Nicole danced with her friends, just as they had to celebrate finishing their song. Wynonna pulled a flask from her pocket and passed it around; when it was empty, she found a second flask in a second pocket.

By the time the second flask was empty, the dancing had wound down; many of the extras swung by to thank Waverly for the fun and wish Nicole well, but they had their own friends and their own plans to see to.

Soon it was just Mercedes, Nicole, Waverly, and Mercedes' small army of assistants. "Go," said Mercedes. "I've got everything here."

Waverly took Nicole's hand and led her out to Nedley's waiting car.

Blearily, through the haze of alcohol induced by Wynonna's flasks, Nicole asked, "where did Dolls and Wynonna go?"

"Back to her place," said Waverly. Their hands were still joined, resting on the seat between them. She lifted her free hand to her lips and tried to hide her giggle.

"Ugh." Nicole's face distorted with disgust. "I don't want to go back there."

"So don't," said Waverly. "I've got a spare bed."

The temperature in Nedley's car seemed to rise several degrees; Nicole pointedly avoided looking in the rear-view mirror. "Are you sure?" she asked, speaking each word as delicately as though they were made of porcelain.

Waverly squeezed Nicole's hand. "Yeah," she said, and they didn't speak again until they bid Nedley good night.

As they stepped through Waverly's front door, Waverly kicked off her heels and groaned. "Finally," she said. "My feet are killing me. Do you want a drink?" She headed for the kitchen. She didn't bother to turn on a light; the spotlights outside suffused the space with a dim, orange glow. Nicole hurriedly untied her dress shoes and followed Waverly.

In the kitchen, Waverly opened one of the cabinets and reached up, trying to grab a bottle on a high shelf.

"Let me," said Nicole. She stood behind Waverly, and when she strained for the bottle, she pressed against her, towering over her. Waverly's breaths fell faster; when Nicole sank back onto her heels and handed Waverly the bottle, Waverly swayed toward Nicole as though she might collapse. She reeled back at the last second.

"I'm going to go sit down," squeaked Waverly. She ducked around Nicole and scurried into the living room.

Instead of taking a seat on the couch, Waverly settled on the floor in front of the coffee table. She set the bottle—which turned out to be whiskey reclaimed from her sister—on the table and started pulling hairpins out of her hair.

"Taking these out is like finding a needle in a haystack," she said. "I always miss some."

Nicole watched as Waverly reached up and started loosing locks of her hair from the pins' hold. Strands unfurled, tumbling down her neck and bouncing off her shoulders.

"Let me help," said Nicole, the words arcing like sparks from her tongue.

Waverly froze, turning toward Nicole with her fingers still buried in her hair. "Okay," she whispered.

Nicole sat on the couch behind Waverly, who curled her legs beneath her on the floor. Every so often, Waverly sipped from the bottle of Wynonna's whiskey; every so often, she passed it back to Nicole, who did the same.

The pins hid in Waverly's hair like rabbits burrowing away for the winter. Nicole found them, teased them free, and handed them forward. Sometimes, when her fingers brushed Waverly's skin, Waverly would hum and take another sip of whiskey.

"Thank you," said Nicole as she worked.

Waverly didn't turn around. "For what?"

"For the re-do formal." Nicole found another pin. "For thinking that much of me."

"You're one of the most wonderful people I've ever met." Waverly shrugged and took a sip of whiskey. "I wanted to make you feel special."

"I don't deserve you," said Nicole.

Waverly turned, one hand on Nicole's thigh. She held Nicole's gaze, and her fingers dug into Nicole's leg. "It's not about deserving," she said, her words clipped. "I care about you, okay? I want you to be happy."

Nicole sucked in a breath through her nose, and between the twin efforts of not crying and not kissing Waverly, she wasn't sure how she was still conscious. "Turn around," she said, her voice shaking. "I'm almost done."

They fell back into silence, into sips of whiskey from a shared bottle, into the clink of pins on Waverly's coffee table. Bit by bit, Waverly's hair reverted to its natural waterfall.

"I think that's most of them," said Nicole, at last. She ran her hands up the back of Waverly's neck and out through her hair, watching it slip through her fingers. "If there are any more, they're too well-hidden for me."

Waverly shuddered. "Thanks," she said. She turned, still bracketed between Nicole's legs. She laid her palms on Nicole's knees. Her eyes followed the line of her fingers, across the fabric pulled taut over Nicole's thighs, up to the unbuttoned collar fluttering over Nicole's throat.

"You promised to tell me something later," she said. "What was it?"

Nicole swallowed, and Waverly watched the motion of her throat like a cat stalking its prey. The look knotted itself in the space beneath Nicole's ribs. "Remember how I told you Wynonna made me go out with her the other night?"

"Yeah."

"She was trying to get me to hook up with someone."

Waverly's hands, rubbing Nicole's knees in absent circles, froze. "Did you?"

"No."

"Did you want to?"

"No."

Waverly studied Nicole. She rested her chin on the back of one of her hands, gazed up at Nicole and bit her lip. "Because of Shae?"

"Because of you." Nicole stretched one shaking hand toward Waverly, leaning forward until her fingers brushed Waverly's cheek. "Because I can't stop thinking about you."

Waverly cupped Nicole's hand with her own, leaning into the touch. A smile etched her cheeks. "Good," she said, then she seized the ends of Nicole's tie and drew her in.

Their lips brushed. A gasp from Nicole met and mingled with a satisfied huff from Waverly. Nicole framed Waverly's face with both hands, then pulled away; they watched each other, open mouthed, eyes wide.

Nicole dove in again.

It was Waverly's turn to gasp, drawing the breath from Nicole's lungs; Nicole chuckled against Waverly's lips.

Waverly dropped Nicole's tie, hiked up her skirt, and pushed herself onto Nicole's lap. Still kissing, still barely bothering to come up for air, Nicole wrapped one arm around Waverly's waist and the other around her shoulders and flipped her. Waverly's back hit the couch and she inhaled, sharp and quick like ripping fabric. At the sound, Nicole pressed in: one hand skimmed along Waverly's jaw to curl into her hair and reel her in; the other slid under the hem of Waverly's skirt, up her shin and over her knee.

 _You're beautiful,_ Nicole wanted to say. _You're amazing._ "This okay?" she said, the words riding rough on the only breath she could spare. She kissed across Waverly's cheek, found her ear, and drew a strangled "don't stop" from the back of Waverly's throat.

Her hand continued along Waverly's leg, scraping the inside of her thigh; the higher it traveled, the finer the thread of Waverly's voice, the harder Waverly's hands clutched Nicole's shoulders. Waverly framed Nicole's face in her hands, guided Nicole to meet her eyes, and repeated herself. "Don't stop."

Both of Nicole's hands disappeared beneath Waverly's skirt, scrunching the fabric up around Waverly's hips and middle. She slipped Waverly's underwear off, flung it god-knows-where, and fell into Waverly again.

When Nicole's fingers found their target, when Waverly found the loose fabric at the back of Nicole's neck and buried her fist in it, Nicole kissed Waverly again.

Waverly's hands circled Nicole's back and shoulders, pulling as though with enough force she could draw Nicole fully into her, merge them together into one body, one being. Nicole propped herself up against the arm of the couch, the weight of her hips falling behind her still-moving hand.

Waverly's breaths came faster, her gasps rang louder, and Nicole watched her from above, watched her eyebrows knit together, watched her reach behind her head to grasp futilely for something to hold on to.

Then, like a wire stretched to its limit and with a sound to match, Waverly fell apart. Nicole tumbled onto her, nose burrowing into the side of Waverly's neck. They lay together, chests heaving, limbs tangled, until Waverly turned her head to find Nicole and drew her into a long, slow kiss.

"Oh my god," said Waverly when they broke apart. Her eyes shone in the dim light.

"Yeah?" said Nicole, still panting. The corners of her mouth twitched upward.

"Wasn't it obvious?" Waverly kissed her again, and then Nicole felt Waverly pushing her back, forcing her down to the other end of the couch and laying on top of her. "Unzip my dress," Waverly whispered in her ear.

Nicole obeyed, letting her fingers follow the zipper down the expanse of Waverly's back. She tried to keep Waverly close, but Waverly pulled away, rising off the couch to stand next to it. When Nicole pushed up on her elbows to follow, Waverly extended a warning finger. She reached into her hair, pulled out two bobby pins, and tossed them on the coffee table. Then she removed her dress entirely, let it crumple to the floor, tossed her bra aside and climbed on top of Nicole again.

Waverly worked the jacket off of Nicole's back and unclasped her shirt, chasing each loosed button with a kiss. The pants came next, then everything else, until there was nothing between them.

"Right," said Waverly, looking down at Nicole stretched out beneath her like she'd never wanted anything more in her life. "This is really happening."

"If you're not ready—"

"I am." Waverly lifted her eyes to meet Nicole's. "I want you."

Nicole lifted herself up and kissed Waverly, as soft as a dandelion seed dancing in the wind.

"It's funny," said Waverly, when she pulled away. "I've thought about this, and worried about not knowing what to do, and I may have... Googled some things. But now that we're here..." She brushed her thumb across Nicole's lip, around her jaw, down her throat, and Nicole shuddered. "I know _exactly_ what I want to do to you."

"In that case," said Nicole, "why don't you show me?"

Then she reached up, pulling Waverly flush against her.

Waverly's hands made their way over Nicole's skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. When her fingers dipped between Nicole's legs, Nicole tried to gasp, but found herself airless; it shocked her eyes open. She stared at the ceiling, restarting her lungs, and for a moment seemed to slip out of herself and out of time.

Light from the speeding cars outside slipped over the walls. The compressor in Waverly's freezer kicked on with a hum. The plaster on Waverly's ceiling spread out in smooth, fan-like swaths.

Waverly curved above her, her mouth at Nicole's neck, her thighs forcing Nicole's apart. Her shoulder blade stood out, sharp under her skin, rolling as her fingers worked. Nicole draped her hand over Waverly's back; she traced the edge of the bone.

The touch drew her back to herself, to every place Waverly touched her. She hauled Waverly in for a kiss as though she could inhale her, as though she could swallow her. She let Waverly sink into her. Even with her eyes closed she could feel Waverly watching her; she opened them. Their eyes met.

"Holy shit," said Waverly, so quietly that Nicole wondered if she had meant to say it out loud at all.

* * *

"What is this?" asked Nicole after everything, once more beneath Waverly, glued together by sweat and skin and fatigue. "What are we doing?"

"I don't know," said Waverly. She squirmed, her forehead pressing into Nicole's cheek. Her fingers teased the wispy hairs at the base of Nicole's neck. "Can we not talk about it tonight?"

"Sure." Nicole kissed the top of Waverly's head. "Should I... should I go back to Wynonna's?"

"No." Waverly sat up, hovering over Nicole, and her hair cascaded around them like a curtain. "Stay the night."

Nicole looked up at her and wondered if the way she looked at Waverly was even half as tender as the way Waverly was looking at her now. She drew two fingers down the edge of Waverly's jaw, across her cheek, and flicked Waverly's bottom lip. "Okay," she said. "I'll stay."

Eventually they peeled themselves off of the couch and stumbled upstairs; Waverly found some of Wynonna's lost clothes for Nicole to wear to sleep. They brushed their teeth at the sink together, Nicole with a brand-new, stiff-bristled brush. Occasionally, their eyes met in the mirror. Every time, they looked away like skittish animals.

"Where's the guest bedroom?" asked Nicole, as they entered the hallway. She looked both ways, as though she might see a sign pointing her in the right direction.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Waverly. She grabbed Nicole's wrist and dragged her into her own room.

Under the covers, they faced each other. Nicole laid her hand on the bed between them. "You doing okay?"

"Better than okay," said Waverly. She laid her hand over Nicole's, laced their fingers together. "We'll talk about it tomorrow. But for now I just want to be you and me and nothing else."

"I can do that." Nicole squeezed Waverly's hand, then slid closer, pressing herself against Waverly's side. She draped her arm over Waverly's stomach. "Good night, Waves."

"Good night." Waverly tilted her head toward Nicole, and Nicole shifted to meet her. The kiss was soft; Waverly sighed. At the sound, Nicole's stomach flipped. Her hand slipped beneath the covers, pressed flat against Waverly's abs. She kissed her harder.

Then her hand was under Waverly's shirt, hot against her skin. Waverly gripped her wrist, dragging Nicole's hand down to the waistband of her shorts. Nicole propped herself up on an elbow and her hand dipped lower.

If earlier they had been frantic, now they were slow; if earlier she had been forceful, now Nicole was steady. Waverly turned toward Nicole, holding on to her as though she would drown if she let go.

Little by little, Nicole stretched Waverly to her breaking point.

When it was done, when Waverly collapsed back into the mattress and sank into it as though she were lying on a cloud, Nicole pressed a kiss to the pulsing artery beneath Waverly's jaw.

Sleep tugged at her like an ocean current. Before she slipped under it, she whispered against Waverly's skin, "you really are something else, Waverly Earp."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does it still count as a slow burn if the dynamite goes off in Chapter 14 of 23? Asking for a friend.
> 
> Also, for those reading this while it's still a WIP: I'm changing up my post day. Posting on Mondays has turned out to be a pretty substantial distraction from my Real Job, setting a bad tone for me the rest of the week. There may be some variation in posting date going forward as I try to find a day that works best for me.
> 
> Next week: an experiment.
> 
> I'll always share a link to new chapters on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws) .


	15. Chapter 15

Nicole woke to her phone chirping an alarm. Face still buried in the pillow, she reached out, yanking it free of its charging cable.

10 A.M., it said.

She didn't remember setting an alarm. Awareness came to her like the drip of a leaky faucet.

This wasn't her bed. It wasn't Wynonna's spare bed either. This was Waverly's bed.

She was in Waverly's house.

She'd slept with Waverly.

Nicole rubbed her eyes. The other side of the bed was empty, but the sheets were askew.

Someone was making noise downstairs.

After stumbling into the bathroom, Nicole brushed her teeth and tried to make herself clean and tidy. She gave up on her hair. When she tottered downstairs, she found Waverly in the kitchen, leaning on the counter and staring out the window.

"Hey," said Nicole, grimacing at how bleary she sounded.

Waverly started, turning toward Nicole with a pasted-on smile. "Hey! You're awake! I mean, I expected you would be, unless you slept through the alarm."

"That was you?" Nicole yawned. "Coffee?"

Waverly skittered over to a complicated-looking coffee machine, where two steaming mugs sat. "Milk or sugar? I don't actually have dairy milk but I have almond milk."

"Black is fine. You set an alarm for me?"

"Yeah, I wanted to make you breakfast, but I was up really early, and you looked so cute sleeping there, I didn't want to wake you up. So I figured I'd set an alarm so I could have everything ready on time."

Waverly handed one coffee mug to Nicole, then hurried back to the stove; Nicole watched her go through half-lidded eyes. Waverly kept chattering. "I don't know what you like for breakfast so I made pancakes, but they're vegan, and there's fresh fruit and I have tofu I can scramble—"

"It's fine," said Nicole. Waverly stopped short, and Nicole winced. "Sorry, that came out harsh. I'm not all there before coffee." She set her mug on the counter and padded over to Waverly. She took Waverly's hands in hers and let them dangle in the space between them. "Thank you. Really. This is very sweet. And for the record I'll eat whatever you put in front of me in the morning."

"I'll have to remember that. Okay, go sit down and drink your coffee so you're less of a zombie." Waverly pushed Nicole away from her, and her smile seemed a fraction more real.

When breakfast was ready, they sat kitty-corner from each other at Waverly's table, making their way through their food in silence. As Nicole's caffeine made its way into her bloodstream, more of the previous night came back to her. They hadn't made any promises. They hadn't expressed any huge feelings. Still, a question lingered between them.

What next?

They finished eating and sat in front of their empty plates, exchanging glances. As the silence dragged on, anxiety bubbled in Nicole's gut.

"So," she said, puncturing the growing tension like a balloon, "we should probably talk about it."

"Oh, you mean about the giant elephant in the room?" Waverly's laugh died a quick, painless death. "Last night was..."

"Amazing," said Nicole.

Waverly bit her lip. "Yeah?" She reached for Nicole's hand where it rested on the table and stopped; her fingers hovered a hair's breadth from Nicole's skin.

Before Waverly could retreat, Nicole captured Waverly's fingers in her own. "Definitely."

Waverly lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to Nicole's knuckles. She traced the tendons spanning the back of Nicole's hand. "I hate that you're leaving tomorrow."

"We have great timing." Nicole dragged her fingers through her hair. "I really like you," she said in a whisper.

"I like you, too," said Waverly. "I don't know what to do."

"We could try long-distance," said Nicole. "I don't know if it'll work out, but..."

"But if we don't try, we'll regret it?" Waverly shook her head. "We can't go back to just being friends, can we?"

A smile as fleeting as a sunbeam on a cloudy day flickered on Nicole's face. "I can't just be your friend. I tried, but if I'm being honest, I like you too much. We've either got to give this a try or I've got to get started on getting over you."

Waverly took a quick breath; her jaw tightened. "God," she said. "I don't want you to get over me. I don't want to get over you." Words shot from her lips like uncoiling springs. "Go on a date with me. Today. A real date. Not as girlfriends or just friends but as people who like each other trying to figure out what they want. That's what dates are for, right? Then—"

"Okay," said Nicole.

"—we can... really?"

"Yeah." Nicole leaned back in her seat, freeing her hands from Waverly's grasp to rub her knees. "Let's give it a try."

"Okay," said Waverly. "Great. Um. I guess you should go home first unless you want to wear Wynonna's clothes all day..."

"Yeah, no thanks," said Nicole, wrinkling her nose.

"That's what I thought." Waverly laughed. "Well, I guess I'll call Nedley to come and get you. And I'll see if Wynonna left anything more appropriate for daytime here. And I'll text you the time and everything later. I have some meetings first but what are you—"

Nicole rose from her seat, slipped her hand around the back of Waverly's neck, and kissed her.

"I can't wait," she said as she pulled away.

Waverly's eyes took a moment to refocus. They settled on Nicole's lips. Nicole's stomach tightened like the motor of a wind-up toy. She forced herself to sit back down.

"Is it bad that I want to drag you back into my bed right now?" asked Waverly with a sigh like the breeze through a forest canopy.

The winding key in Nicole's back cranked; she crossed her legs. "Only if it's bad that I want to let you."

Waverly groaned. "Oh, don't tease me! We have to have our date first. Then..."

Nicole bit her lip. "Then... we'll see."

* * *

They said goodbye at the front door, as stiffly as marionettes in the hands of inexperienced puppeteers. Nicole plucked at her shirt, a scrounged-up relic of Wynonna's.

Nedley pulled into the drive. Waverly crossed her arms over herself, brushing away a chill. "So. I'll see you later?"

"Yeah," said Nicole. She slipped her hands in her pockets. "I'm really looking forward to it."

"Good," said Waverly.

"Good," said Nicole.

Nicole stared down at Waverly, heart hammering against her ribs like the beat in a nightclub, and bit her lip.

Waverly threw her arms around Nicole's neck. Nicole's hands gripped the small of Waverly's back. As they kissed, the tension in Nicole's gut exploded, sending shockwaves over her skin. They clawed at each other, collapsing every silver of space between them.

Nicole pulled back, catching her breath. "Why do you have to be so irresistible?"

"Oh my _god_ , Nicole. If you don't stop talking I'm going to give Nedley a show that'll stop his poor heart." Waverly pushed Nicole away from her. "Go on. I'll see you later, okay? Wear something nice."

Nicole walked backward toward Nedley's car. "Only if you wear something hot." She hung a grin on her lips.

Waverly shook her head and tried to glare, but her smile cut through the glare like the prow of a ship through the ocean. When Nicole reached Nedley's car, her grin softened. She lifted her hand in a halting wave. Waverly mirrored the gesture.

Nicole tore herself away, throwing herself into the backseat. She met Nedley's eyes in the rear view mirror. "It's not what you're thinking," she said.

"I'm not thinkin' anythin'," he said, backing out of the driveway.

"We're going to figure it out," said Nicole. "I'm not going to hurt her."

He concentrated on the road. Nicole waited. When they locked eyes again, he said, "I hope you know what you're doing."

She let her forehead fall against the window. "Yeah, me too."

* * *

Nicole stumbled into Wynonna's apartment, her hand over her eyes. "Hello? Dolls? Wynonna?"

"Haught?" asked Dolls, somewhere ahead of her. She stopped, halfway through the door.

"Do you have clothes on?" she asked.

"I'm fully clothed, yes."

She screwed up her mouth. "Does Wynonna have clothes on?"

"I'm wearing underwear, does that count?" shouted Wynonna, from what sounded like the kitchen.

Nicole dropped her hand. "Good enough." Dolls stood in front of her, in sweatpants and a tank top, looking very pleased with himself.

"Fun night?" she asked.

He shrugged, but his face broke out in an actual grin. "You?"

Her grin matched his. Wynonna emerged from the kitchen in a loosely-tied bathrobe that only haphazardly hid everything beneath. "Okay, Haught, spill! Where did you—wait, are those my clothes? You skank, you slept with my sister!"

Nicole held up her hands to appease Wynonna, who was winding back to chuck a donut at Nicole's face. "Yes, okay? I did! But we're two consenting adults—I swear to god, if you throw that donut at me I'll eat it!"

Wynonna shoved the donut into her mouth and glared at Nicole. "Jeez, you even sound like her now," she said, around a mouthful. "Okay, so remember the ultimatum I gave you? You just conveniently forget that?"

"We're going on a date," said Nicole. "We're going to figure it out."

Dolls crossed his arms. "You're going to try long-distance?"

Nicole groaned and swept past them into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water. "I don't know. We're going to go on a real date like normal people and decide what we want to do."

"You couldn't have figured that out when you were, oh, I don't know... at her house, buck naked?" Wynonna strutted into her living room, flopped onto her couch, and sank into a pile of pillows. "Whatever, dude, just remember I'll kick your teeth in if you make my sister cry. Dolls, get your gorgeous ass over here."

Dolls met Nicole's faintly disgusted stare. He raised his eyebrows. She gestured for him to do as he'd been bidden.

He narrowed his eyes in thought. "I'm going to talk to Nicole for a bit," he said over his shoulder.

Wynonna threw her head back on the couch and groaned. "Oh, fine, go be a good friend or whatever."

Nicole took her water and headed into her bedroom, followed by Dolls. He turned away, giving her privacy to strip herself of Wynonna's clothes.

"So you're going on a date with Waverly," he said, staring at the wall.

She pulled on her jeans. "Yeah."

"Are you excited?"

She found a t-shirt that would suit her until she had to dress for the date. "It's a date with Waverly," she said. "You can turn around, I'm decent."

He turned, arms crossed. "You didn't answer my question."

"I think I'm excited." She dropped onto the end of the bed. "I mostly feel like I'm going to throw up."

"That seems normal."

She took a sip of water. "Maybe. I guess I just feel like we're putting off the question of whether we're going to try a long distance relationship or take a break from our whole friendship."

"That's a hard question to answer in 24 hours."

"I know."

"Do you want to be in a relationship with her?"

"Obviously." Nicole drained her glass, set it on the dresser, then flopped onto her back on the bed. "I don't even have to date her to know she could be it, Dolls. We could be something special."

"But?"

"But how am I supposed to date _Waverly Earp_ and not lose my mind when I'm a whole country away and I can't even touch her?" She clamped her hands over her eyes and let out a throat-tearing growl. "And how am I supposed to stop being friends with her when just walking away from her feels like ripping my lungs out through my teeth?"

The floor creaked beneath Dolls' feet as he rounded the bed. He took a seat beside her; the mattress sighed under his weight. "I wish I could tell you."

She uncovered her face and squinted at him. "What was that?"

He lifted one eyebrow. "What was what?"

"I heard emotion in your voice."

"Impossible."

"You didn't just sleep with Wynonna," she said, sitting bolt upright. "You've got feelings for her."

"You're imagining things." He wouldn't meet her eyes.

She pressed her lips together and let out her breath slowly. "We're a pair of idiots."

"I guess we are." He laid down on the bed, hands folded over his stomach.

Nicole reclined next to him, mimicking his posture; their elbows knocked. "What are you going to do about Wynonna?"

"Nothing," he said. "She's going to stay here. I'm going to go home. That'll be it."

"That's rough."

He shrugged. "That's life."

"You could leave, if you wanted," she said, letting her head fall to the side so she could look at him. He stared at the ceiling. "You could move back down here, get a job."

"I'll take it under consideration," he said, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. "You know I like working for you."

"I know," she said. She looked back at the ceiling. "I love you too, Dolls."

* * *

Waverly texted Nicole and told her to be ready by 6 P.M. When 5:45 arrived, it found Nicole pacing in Wynonna's entryway.

"She'll be here," said Wynonna, from her deck. "Stop wearing a hole in my floor."

Dolls had left after a phone call from someone at Waverly's label, and Wynonna and Nicole had been trying not to kill each other since. They'd brokered a truce by maintaining a one-person occupancy limit for all rooms.

"What if she changed her mind?" asked Nicole.

"She didn't."

"What if something happened?"

"Oh my god."

"What if—"

"It's not even six, you total weirdo. How does Dolls not kill you every day?" Wynonna sprang from her lounge chair and slammed the sliding door shut between them.

Nicole took a seat on the couch, turning her phone over and over in her hands. She stood again. She adjusted her shirt. Smoothed out her pants. Tucked her hair behind her ears. Resumed pacing.

At 5:53 P.M., her phone buzzed.

"Hey!" she said, breathless.

"Hey," said Waverly. "I'm here! I hope I'm not too early?"

Nicole had already bounded through the front door and started clattering down the staircase. "No, of course not. It's never too early to see you."

"Flatterer. Are you on your way down?"

She careened from one flight of stairs to the next so fast she almost gave herself whiplash. "Yeah, I'm almost out." When she hit the bottom of the staircase, she sprinted to the front door of Wynonna's apartment building.

"Okay, I'll see you..."

Nicole stopped, took a deep breath, and strode through the door. At the end of a concrete walkway stood Waverly, leaning against her car, her phone still against her ear.

"Hi," said Nicole.

"Hi," said Waverly. They walked toward each other, stopping an arm's length away.

"You look amazing," said Nicole, smiling so hard her cheeks burned.

Waverly twirled her hips; her skirt flowed around her. "So do you."

Biting her lip, Nicole leaned in. "What's the policy on PDA? I'm dying to kiss you."

"No dying allowed," said Waverly, shaking her head and laughing. Her earrings caught the light and threw it glittering in every direction. "We have too much to do."

She backed away, leading Nicole to her car and opening the door for her. When the doors were closed, she trailed her fingers down Nicole's arm, laced their fingers together, and said, "I thought you were dying to kiss me?"

They leaned toward each other, smiling into the kiss. "What do you have planned for me, Miss Earp?" asked Nicole as they pulled apart.

"Don't you Miss Earp me," said Waverly, turning her attention to the road and grinning. "You'll find out. And, um, just so we're on the same page, I'd rather not let the world find out about this yet. If that's okay? I don't want my publicist yelling at me, especially if we don't... well, you know."

Nicole turned toward Waverly, watching her eyes scan the road ahead, studying the way her fingers gripped the steering wheel. She nodded, and Waverly looked at her askance before focusing on her driving again. "I understand," said Nicole.

The first part of Waverly's plans turned out to be a casual little restaurant, well-lit and packed with as many tiny tables as fit in the space. Nicole's knees knocked the table support as she sat down. "This isn't what I was expecting," she said, as the waiter poured water and handed them menus.

"What were you expecting? Dim lighting, menus without prices, a bar with backlit bottles of expensive alcohol?"

"Yeah, pretty much," said Nicole.

"Don't get me wrong, those places can be fun," said Waverly. "But for our first date... I wanted to take you somewhere special to me."

Nicole leaned toward Waverly, folding her arms on the table. "What's the story behind this place?"

"This," said Waverly, "is where I had a vegan meal for the first time. This was actually the first restaurant I went to when I got here. It's still one of my favorites."

They ordered drinks: a bottle of wine for the two of them, selected by Waverly.

"You weren't vegan until you came here?" asked Nicole.

"It's not really part of the culture in Purgatory. I probably would have gone vegan eventually, but Daddy thought it was stupid and even after he died..." Waverly ran one finger around the rim of her glass. She shook her head. "Sorry, I shouldn't talk about him. He's... talking about him is a bit much for a first date."

Nicole laid her hand on the table; Waverly mirrored the gesture. They let their fingers drift toward each other, Nicole's thumb brushing Waverly's pinky. "I think we're a little past typical first date material."

"I know. And it's not that I don't want to tell you! But I don't want tonight to be about sad things. Just in case."

"All right," said Nicole. "Then let's lean into the first date thing. Though it's been ages since I've been on a first date."

"Not since you started dating Shae, right?" Waverly leaned into her propped-up hand. "How did you two get together?"

"We met at a bar and hit it off. She wrote her number on my hand but I accidentally rubbed off two of the digits. I called every possible combination until I found her."

"Dedication. I like it." Waverly pursed her lips. "Sorry, is it okay to talk about her?"

Nicole leaned back in her seat as the waiter returned with their bottle of wine. When he left, she shrugged. "I don't want to spend too much time talking about her, but it's fine. She was a big part of my life for a long time."

"I don't want to hear about her too much, either. But I guess it's nice to get a sense of what you're like in a relationship." Waverly sipped her wine, eyeing Nicole over the rim of her glass. "Would you do that for me? Call all those numbers trying to find me?"

Nicole draped one arm over the back of her chair and grinned. "Waverly, you could write nothing but 'call me' and a smiley face on my hand and I'd do whatever it took to find you again. I mean it."

"I would, too," said Waverly. "I knew the day I met you that I had to keep you in my life somehow."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. When I came out to you at the café, you reached over and squeezed my hand, remember? You had this look on your face like you couldn't believe you'd done it. It was so genuine and sweet."

The urge to do it again filled Nicole; she glanced around the restaurant and found no curious stares. She let her hand slip over Waverly's.

Waverly laughed, unsteadily. "Then we went to the beach and you were just so... so..." She gestured at Nicole's face, then gave up with a frustrated sigh. "You're gorgeous, do you know that? You were just standing there with your hair and your eyes and your stupid, stupid dimples and all I could think about was you leaning in and kissing me. I haven't stopped thinking about it since."

"That's all I'm thinking about right now, if I'm being honest," said Nicole.

"Oh, stop." Waverly looked away but she squeezed Nicole's hand; Nicole's words had painted her cheeks the color of that sunset, all those nights ago.

* * *

After dinner, and after steering themselves through lighter conversational fare, Waverly brought them to a park. The sun had set, but streetlights lit the pathways and they strolled side-by-side. Their arms brushed occasionally, triggering goosebumps on Nicole's forearms.

"I love cities at night," said Waverly. Their path led them around the edge of a large pond. A fountain spluttered in the center, lit from below by submerged lights. "I love how they glow."

"I don't know about this city," said Nicole, "but back home, I love when it gets really late and no one's out anymore. I like walking down the street knowing everyone's asleep but me."

"You really love it there, huh?" asked Waverly. Light from the pond danced on her face.

"Guilty as charged," said Nicole.

Silence dogged them as they wandered away from the pond. Glancing around, Waverly took Nicole's hand and led her off the pathway toward a bench that overlooked the rest of the city. Nicole stretched her arm over the back of the bench and Waverly tucked herself in beside her.

"I think," said Waverly, letting her head fall on Nicole's shoulder, "that a long-distance relationship would be a bad idea."

Nicole dug her fingernails into the wood grain of the bench. "Yeah... I've been thinking the same thing."

"Every time I think about it, I think, 'I still barely know Nicole.' And trying to get to know you and doing something as heavy as dating someone thousands of miles away... that scares me."

"So this is it?" Nicole shifted, peering down at Waverly. "I leave tomorrow and... that's it?"

Nicole's mouth went dry. It seemed all the moisture in her body was being called to her eyes, and she fought to still her trembling chin. The corners of her jaw burned.

"Well," said Waverly, fiddling with her hands in her lap. "Um. I might... okay, this is probably just as bad an idea, but..."

"What?" Nicole whispered.

"I talked to some people." Waverly gripped Nicole's knee. "I didn't say why but... I asked if... if you wanted... if you could join me on tour."

Nicole's eyebrows knit together; her jaw fell open. "You... what?"

"It wouldn't be... I'm not saying... you wouldn't just be following me around. You'll be an opening act and then come back out for our song. You'll be paid, it'll be a job. But... then we..."

Pushing off the bench, Nicole walked forward, hands on her hips, staring down at the city below. She buried both hands in her hair. "Wow," she said. "That's..."

Waverly hurried after her, stepping in front of Nicole. "It's a lot. I know."

"How long is it?"

"About four months."

"And what happens after?" Nicole shook her head and shoved her hands in her pockets. "When the tour's over? This doesn't fix anything. We're just kicking the can down the road."

Drawing a shaking breath, Waverly framed Nicole's face in her hands. "But we can get to know each other. In person. Together. Then... if we're far apart we'll at least have a foundation."

Nicole took a long step back, away from Waverly's touch, shaking her head again. "And if one of us still doesn't want to be in a long-distance relationship? Or if we try long-distance and it doesn't work?" She stared at the starless sky and hated it. "You should just break my heart now and get it over with."

"Don't say that." Waverly followed Nicole, casting her arms like a net and hauling Nicole in. "What if does work? Wouldn't it be worth it?"

Nicole gripped Waverly's upper arms. "God dammit." Her eyes fluttered closed. Her breath stopped, as though her throat were a clenching fist. She opened her eyes again.

When she released Waverly, Waverly seized two fistfuls of her shirt, holding her in place. Nicole shook her head, reached into her pocket, and offered Waverly a quavering smile.

"Hey, Dolls?" she said, when he picked up. Waverly let go of Nicole just long enough to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

"Lucado called me into the office today," he said. "You know I'm going to make you explain this to me later."

"I know," she said. "Is it a good deal?" Waverly's eyes grew wide.

"It's a great deal. As your agent, if you don't take this offer, I quit."

Nicole tucked a loose strand of hair behind Waverly's ear. "And as my friend?"

"Trust your gut," he said. "That's all I've got for you."

She swallowed, let her fingers skim Waverly's jaw. Her hand fell to her side, curling into a fist. "I'll do it," she said, holding Waverly's gaze. Waverly clapped her hands over her mouth. "Whatever I need to sign, I'll sign."

"If you're sure," said Dolls.

"I'm sure."

They exchanged a few more words, but before Nicole could hang up, Waverly had already thrown herself forward, burying her face in Nicole's neck. As soon as Nicole ended the call, Waverly shot up on her toes and kissed her.

"What about not wanting people to see?" asked Nicole, breathless.

"Be quiet," said Waverly, enforcing the order with another, harder kiss.

They tangled together, arms and fingers and lips. They laughed into each other.

"You won't regret this," said Waverly, when she came up for air.

Nicole kissed her again, hoping, despite the storm brewing in her gut, that Waverly was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first got to Chapter 15, my outline had them not getting together even after sleeping together. It was going to be an untenable situation and it was not going to work out well for them! I miss some of the potential scenes I lost as a result of throwing out the old outline, but I think the fic is better this way. I think it's more true to Nicole and Waverly.
> 
> Next week: a little introspection.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@gooseclaws!](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	16. Chapter 16

Nicole and Waverly staggered through Waverly's front door after their date, glued to each other. Nicole kicked the door closed and Waverly pushed her back against it, dragging her hand away from the small of Nicole's back for one moment to turn the lock.

"Bedroom," she said, when she came up for air. She pulled away, leading Nicole's lips on a wild goose chase.

They stumbled up the stairs. At the top, Nicole pushed Waverly against the wall. Her lips brushed the side of Waverly's neck and Waverly gasped, ducking out from under Nicole and darting toward her room.

Nicole groaned, running after Waverly, catching her by the wrist and reeling her back in. Waverly let Nicole kiss her; her hands slipped beneath Nicole's shirt, trailing up her spine, and Nicole froze, shivering. Waverly slipped away again, eyes glimmering.

In the doorway, Nicole slipped one arm around Waverly's waist; her other hand braced against the door frame, anchoring them even as Waverly tried to pull away. When Nicole craned over her, Waverly sank backward, falling into Nicole. She turned in Nicole's grip, reached up, and rose into their kiss.

Nicole grinned against Waverly's lips. She lifted Waverly and carried her to the bed; they toppled over together, giggling as they landed with a bounce.

Between frenzied kisses and wandering hands, they stripped each other of their clothes. Nicole's pants caught on her heel and Waverly laughed as she tugged them off; Waverly's earring snagged her shirt and Nicole picked it free, peppering the underside of Waverly's jaw with kisses as her fingers worked.

It wasn't until Nicole's lips trailed along the inside of Waverly's thigh that their laughter faded away.

* * *

Lying under the covers, pressed against Nicole, Waverly whispered, "I don't want to sleep."

"Hm?" Nicole lifted her head from where it had been resting on Waverly's; sleep had begun to drag her down to its realm.

"If we go to sleep," said Waverly, drawing looping patterns on Nicole's chest with her fingers, "we'll fast forward to tomorrow. And you're leaving tomorrow."

Nicole sighed. Her hand cupped Waverly's hip, anchoring them together. "I know. I don't want to go."

"You could stay." Waverly twisted, pressing a kiss to the shallow of Nicole's collarbone.

"I wish," said Nicole. "Dolls was very clear with me, though. 'Something something immigration laws'."

"So clear." Waverly's fingers began to dance lower. "I don't want to wait two months to see you again."

Nicole swallowed when Waverly's hand slipped under the blankets and skipped along her skin. She ran one finger around the curve of Waverly's jaw, committing the shape of it to memory. "What if you visit me?"

Waverly stilled like a deer catching the scent of a wolf. "What?"

"Come stay with me. I know you're going to be busy, but I'll take what I can get."

The heat of Waverly's hands disappeared; the blanket settled back down, filling the void, shocking and cool where Waverly's hands had been. Nicole frowned as Waverly sat up, curling over her bent knees.

"I can't," said Waverly. She stared at the contours of the bed, the way the sheets stretched under their weight. "I... I don't go home."

"I know." Nicole's fingers explored the sweep of Waverly's back, the ridges of her shoulders, the crease of her spine. "We don't have to go to Purgatory. We don't even have to leave my bed if you don't want to."

When Waverly looked back at her, the grin on Nicole's face fell away.

"I can't," said Waverly.

At that, Nicole sat up, her hand firm on Waverly's back. "Okay," she said. "Is it too close to home?"

"Yes?" Waverly drew her hair over one shoulder, running her fingers through it. "No? It's hard to explain."

"You don't have to," said Nicole. She swept her hand up and down Waverly's skin. "Not if you're not ready."

"Do you mean that?" Waverly turned again, one hand reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of Nicole's face.

Nicole nodded. "I do."

Waverly poured herself into the space between Nicole's arms. "Thank you," she whispered.

When Nicole pulled Waverly closer, Waverly nuzzled into Nicole's chest. Nicole stared at the wall, chewing the inside of her lip. Her thoughts caught the updraft of their breaths, lifting up and up, through the ceiling, into the sky; they joined with the wind, its current carrying them home.

With one cheek pressed against Waverly's hair, Nicole closed her eyes and sighed. "Do you think you'll ever be able to visit me?"

Waverly flinched. Her hand snaked between them, fingers pecking a nervous rhythm against Nicole's collarbone. "I don't know." Her hand unfolded, pressed flat over Nicole's heart, and she shifted to peer up at her. "Is that okay?"

Nicole held Waverly's gaze, searching her face and reading the fear she found there. She covered the hand resting on her chest, then lifted it and pressed a kiss to Waverly's palm. "I don't know," she said. "I want to say yes, but... I don't know."

Waverly's fingers trailed down Nicole's jaw. She kissed her like a summer breeze. "We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out together." Her kisses grew harder, fiercer, the summer breeze whipping into a hurricane. She climbed into Nicole's lap.

Nicole let Waverly push her head back, let Waverly rake her fingernails over her shoulders. Every touch buried Nicole's worries deeper, pushing them aside until all that was left was Waverly, above her, asking for something Nicole could give.

Her hand cruised from Waverly's hip down her thigh and back up, slipping between Waverly's legs. Waverly gasped. She draped herself over Nicole. Her breaths clouded against Nicole's ear; strangled sounds escaped her, digging into Nicole like spurs, urging her on, faster, harder. Her free hand, her lips, her teeth: she let them roam.

As Waverly's legs began to shake, as tension rippled through her muscles so powerfully Nicole swore she could hear them twang, Nicole pressed on. Waverly's fingers clawed at Nicole's hair. They marked Nicole's skin. Every prick and gasp cascaded over Nicole, catalyzing within her, driving her on.

Then, hauling Nicole toward her, noses and foreheads knocking, Waverly collapsed like the break of a storm-lashed swell. She pitched forward; Nicole caught her. Her face pressed into the side of Nicole's neck. Her chest heaved.

Nicole helped her roll off, pouring her onto the bed still gasping for breath. Waverly looked up at Nicole, the back of her hand pressed against her forehead. Through her daze, she looked at Nicole with something approaching wonder.

Drawing a shaking breath, Nicole smiled, then leaned down and kissed Waverly again. When she pulled back, she bit her lip, trapping an _I love you_ behind her teeth.

* * *

In the morning, Nicole found a bathrobe that was probably adorably oversized on Waverly but fit her just fine. She donned it—ignoring the rest of her clothes strewn on the floor—then tidied herself up in the bathroom and began to wander.

Her first destination was the kitchen. She prodded the coffee machine, which woke up with a pleased little jingle, but otherwise remained inscrutable. Its buttons were numerous and confusing, and she settled for a mug of hot tea with water boiled in a thankfully-traditional kettle.

She studied the fridge. Waverly had magnets galore, pinning an assortment of papers and pictures to the doors. A magazine clipping reviewing her first album in glowing terms. A photo of her and Wynonna sitting by a pool. A chicken-scratch note that said "stole your whiskey sry p.s. love you p.s. stole your car too p.s REALLY love you."

A calendar also hung on the refrigerator. On the day Nicole had returned to L.A., Nicole found her name inscribed within a buoyant heart.

Tea in hand, she wandered the first floor. She found a home gym and a study, its floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books. She craned her neck to read the titles, her eyebrows stretching higher and higher until they were in danger of flying off entirely. Waverly seemed to be a history buff, possibly fluent in multiple languages, and a genealogy hobbyist. Nicole would have to ask about that.

Her last stop was the backyard, which had teased her all morning with greenery and a shimmering glimpse of a pool. A breeze tickled the back of her neck as she stepped outside. Palm trees stretched toward the sky. Other leafy plants she didn't recognize crowded the fence and hemmed in the water.

She hiked the bathrobe over her knees and settled on the concrete edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water. Between the wind rustling through the trees and the water swirling around her feet, she felt a tiny bit at home.

With her body settled, her mind decided to do its own wandering.

Waverly could never visit her. Nicole had thought Purgatory was the issue, the place containing all of Waverly's demons, but the forbidden zone stretched at least as far as the city. Maybe it covered all of the surrounding territory, or all of Canada. Nicole kicked, spraying droplets across the surface of the pool.

If she couldn't visit Nicole, if Nicole always had to visit her, how could this work? Sure, Waverly probably had more money than god at this point, could fly Nicole anywhere she wanted. But the thought of Waverly in her tiny apartment stayed in her mind like a splinter, and the more she tried to remove it, the deeper it burrowed.

Waverly in her tiny bed. Waverly in Nicole's favorite coffee shop, studying the menu with determination. Waverly huffing and puffing her way up Nicole's favorite hiking trail because Nicole hadn't yet convinced her to give rock climbing a try, leaning into Nicole's arms as they surveyed the view from the top.

Nicole set her mug aside, leaned back on her palms, and closed her eyes. When she opened them, she saw someone standing beside her; she looked up to find Waverly, hair still sleep-tangled, a loose shirt hanging off of one shoulder.

"I wondered where you went," said Waverly. She sat down next to Nicole. "Did you make yourself coffee?"

"That coffee machine requires a Ph.D to operate," said Nicole. "Speaking of which, are you secretly a professor or something?"

Waverly gave Nicole a half-smile. "Maybe in another life. Did you go sneaking around my house?"

"A little." Nicole shrugged. "I didn't want to wake you up. And I was thinking."

"About?"

"Us." Nicole stirred the water with her foot. She heard more than saw Waverly turn away to stare at the rippling surface.

"Are you having second thoughts? Because I won't visit you?"

"Not second thoughts," said Nicole. "Just... thoughts."

Waverly nudged Nicole's knee with her own. "I had some time to think about it."

Nicole chuckled. "Oh? When did you manage that? I seem to remember you falling asleep right after I finished with you last night."

"I've been up for a little while." Waverly scooted a tiny bit closer to Nicole, their arms pressing together. "I'm sorry. For freaking out last night. For maybe ruining this before it starts."

"You don't have to apologize. Or explain. We..." Nicole tipped her head to the side, racking her brain for the right words. "You don't owe me anything."

"I want to explain. If you'll let me." Waverly laid her hand on her thigh, palm up. Nicole dropped her own into it without any hesitation, and their fingers knitted together. "My father lives in the city."

"Oh." Nicole's brows furrowed. "Wait. Didn't you say your dad..."

"That was Daddy," said Waverly. "He wasn't my father. He was my sisters' father, but not mine. Of course, no one told me that until I was a teenager."

Nicole let out the breath she'd been holding; beside her, Waverly stiffened. Nicole squeezed her hand, leaned in, and pressed a kiss to her temple. "I'm sorry," she said. "That must have been hard."

"It was. I told you how Mama came home my junior year. That's when it all blew up. All Mama's secrets... she had an affair before I was born with a military guy. Julian. I was born while he was deployed.

"He didn't know about me when he came back and ran off with Mama. Mama never told him. All I know is that he found out my junior year and he was so mad, he kicked Mama out. That's when she came crawling back home."

"Have you ever met him?"

Waverly lifted one foot from the water, watching drops run off her heel and splash back home. "No. I never tried. I thought he might come find me. But..." She shrugged. "Just my luck: two dads and neither of them wanted me."

The urge to punch both Ward Earp and Julian bubbled in Nicole's gut; she wondered if this was how Wynonna felt all the time, and Wynonna's love affair with whiskey suddenly made a lot more sense. "That's their loss," she said, running her hand down Waverly's spine to rest in the small of her back. "You're amazing. Anyone would be lucky to have you in their lives. I know I am."

"I'm the lucky one." Waverly curled into Nicole, her fingers playing with the collar of Nicole's bathrobe. "I want to visit. I want to curl up in your bed and see the places that make you light up. But I don't want to be where he is."

Waverly's fingers grazed Nicole's skin; Nicole gulped. "You'd probably never run into him. It may not be the biggest city in the world, but it's big enough."

"If there's anything I've learned living here," said Waverly, "there's no such thing." Her hand slipped beneath Nicole's bathrobe, pressing over Nicole's heart. "I can't make any promises. I don't know if I'll ever be able to face going back there. But you make me feel... you..."

She buried her face in Nicole's shoulder, stanching the flow of her tears; when she pulled away, the damp fabric clung to Nicole's skin.

"You make me feel brave," said Waverly. "With you... for you, I think there's a chance."

As Waverly spoke, she let her hand fall; it slipped down Nicole's chest and around her stomach to rest on her hip. The angle of Waverly's arm pulled the bathrobe open just enough for the cool morning air to shock Nicole's skin.

Nicole's eyes fluttered closed. When she opened them again, she leaned toward Waverly and kissed away a tear that still clung to Waverly's jaw.

She licked her lips. She tasted salt.

"I think," she said, twisting toward Waverly, whispering against her lips, "that's a chance I'm willing to take."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I consider the start of Act 3. Welcome to the end!
> 
> Next week: Nicole's bad poker face.
> 
> I gots me a twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	17. Chapter 17

A week after Nicole and Dolls returned home, Dolls informed Nicole that he'd arranged for her to play a handful of local shows.

She sat on his couch with her guitar across her knees, picking out a random melody. When he made his announcement, she paused. "Is this a PR thing?"

"Of course," he said, peering at her over his reading glasses. "The tour is going to do a lot to boost your profile, but we should use this time to take advantage of the good press you've already gotten. You should be able to draw bigger crowds than usual now that you've worked with WAVES."

"You can call her Waverly." Nicole filled his apartment with a few odd notes.

He harrumphed. "When she's on stage, she's WAVES. Speaking of Waverly, how are things?"

Nicole played a few bars of a song she'd been working on, one that had no words attached yet. "Things are great." She talked with Waverly daily on the phone, texted her near-constantly, and spent every other moment daydreaming about her.

"Mmhm," he said, raising one eyebrow.

"It's fine."

"Sure."

She groaned, dragging her hand over her face. "I'm not going to say it's easy," she said at last, "but I'm going to see her in less than two months. We'll get to see each other all the time. I just need to survive until then."

"And after the tour?"

"I don't know. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but she's worth a try. She's worth a thousand tries."

He slipped off his glasses, folded them, and tucked them in their case. "I know," he said. "I don't want you to think I'm against this."

She smiled, leaning back on the couch. "You just like to check in on me, I know. How are you, by the way? I noticed Wynonna didn't see us off."

Nicole had returned from Waverly's house on the day of their departure to find Dolls already outside with all of their luggage, checking his watch and scowling. He'd bundled her into Nedley's car without much ado.

"She was still sleeping," he said. "Waking her up would have been a death sentence."

"But you left things okay?"

"We left things just fine," he said. "I'll probably see her on the tour. We'll see what happens."

She crossed one leg over the other, balancing it at the ankle, and her foot bobbed. "Okay," she said. "You just spend so much time making sure I'm all right, I want to make sure I repay the favor."

"Haught." He shook his head, tidying the papers on his desk. "I'm fine. Go home. Play your guitar, text your girlfriend, and don't worry about me."

"I can't help it." Nicole started to put her guitar away. "If I told you to stop worrying about me, what would you say?"

"I'd say that was a very funny joke."

"See?" She zipped her guitar case closed and hefted it over her shoulder. "How about this. If I let you worry about me, you let me worry about you."

"I don't know, sounds like I'm getting the short end of the stick, here." He leaned back in his seat. Crossing the room to stand in front of his desk, she leaned over and offered him her hand. He eyed it. She wiggled her fingers.

"All right, all right." He gripped her hand and gave it one firm shake, then waved her away. "Now go home. And write some new music!" he shouted, as she closed the door behind her.

* * *

Her first show came a week later; she took the stage to find a bigger crowd than usual. The space was modest but people filled every inch of it, spilling into the dark corners furthest from the stage. Her audience had always skewed female, but the faces watching her as she readied herself were younger, the eyes following her hungrier.

She wondered if she ought to have buttoned her shirt just a bit more.

She wondered what Waverly would say if she saw the way these girls ogled her.

The thought set her stomach to boiling; her mind conjured the ghosts of Waverly's fingers, her lips, her voice. Nicole willed them away and drew the first screaming notes from her guitar. The vibrations rattled through her fingers, up her arms, into her molars, and snapped her back to the present.

She dove into her set, freeing notes from the strings of her guitar and flinging them into the space. Her voice boomed from the speakers; people cheered for it, leapt for it, threw their hands in the air for it. She grinned. Someone wolf whistled.

In a pause between two songs, she leaned back from the mic and dragged her arm across her forehead. Sweat still clung to her, matting a lock of hair to her skin.

"I want to have your babies!" shouted a girl.

Something heavy and sharp settled on the back of her neck, needling her. Waverly's voice tickled her eardrums; they started to ring. She tried to shake the feeling away. Leaning into the mic, she chuckled. "Well, sounds like someone really likes my music."

The crowd cheered. She gazed at them; they stared right back. Eyes uplifted, smiles parting their faces, they watched her and waited for her, ready and willing. She gathered them up and let their adoration wash over her, drowning the piercing feeling still sitting at the base of her skull.

Then she plunged back in, and took them all with her.

* * *

After the show, after packing up and splashing cold water on her face in an attempt to displace the uncomfortable feeling still clinging to her skin, she left the venue by the side door.

People waited for her. Just as when she'd stepped on the stage, she found more eyes on her than she'd come to expect. For a moment, it shocked her; her eyes went wide, her jaw went slack. Then someone thrust a photograph and a marker at her, and she started signing.

She made small talk, smiling and laughing with her fans. They wanted to know about her music, her next EP, but their questions always led to Waverly in the end. How was it, working with WAVES? Was she nice? Was she as pretty as she looked in pictures? Did she smell good?

Nicole walked away from that questioner in a hurry.

She reached a cluster of three girls, possibly older teenagers or college students. One of them blushed as Nicole approached, and while she waited the hue grew deeper. She didn't speak, and Nicole didn't prod. She offered the girl a smile as she signed the proffered paper.

As she finished signing, the girl blurted out, "so are you, like, dating WAVES?"

Nicole froze; the marker slipped from her suddenly rigid fingers and clattered to the ground. The sound broke through the rust suddenly immobilizing her joints and she bent to grab it. When she stood, she shook her head. "Waverly and I are just friends."

"But you guys are so cute together," said one of the more talkative girls.

"More like off-the-charts _hot_ ," said the other.

Nicole shoved the marker back at one of them, a smile stapled to her face, and shook her head. "Just friends. Anyway, you all have a good night." She hefted her gig bag over her shoulder and turned on her heel, striding toward her car. As she passed the crowd, she caught sight of phones aimed her way, cameras turned on her hasty retreat.

She ignored them, shoved her things in her trunk, and left.

She called Waverly as soon as she got home.

"Hey, baby," said Waverly, and Nicole just about melted into the floorboards. "How was the show?"

"It was good," said Nicole. She pulled the phone away from her ear, set it on speaker, and set it on the kitchen counter as she pried open her refrigerator and hunted down dinner.

"Just good?"

"Really good." She found what she was looking for: her leftovers from the previous day and a cold bottle of beer. She set them on the counter next to the phone. "Maybe a little weird."

"Why weird?"

She started the leftovers microwaving and popped the cap off of her beer, taking a sip. It washed over her tongue, bitter and floral. "I think a lot of your fans were there. They were a little..."

"Invasive?" Waverly sighed. "Yeah, most of them are super nice! But not all of them. I'm sorry, I should have warned you about that."

"It's not your fault." Leaning back against the counter, Nicole picked up the phone and brought it back to her ear. "Someone asked me if we're dating."

"What did you say?"

Nicole sucked on her teeth. The microwave dinged. "I said we were just friends. I know you want to keep it quiet for now."

Waverly's pause simmered between them; Nicole wondered where Waverly was, how she looked, what she was wearing. Heat crept up her neck, mixing with the prickling sensation that still hadn't left since the show.

"Is that okay?" asked Waverly, snapping Nicole from her musings. "That I want to keep it private?"

"Yeah, of course. I..." Nicole rubbed the back of her neck. "I like that it's just between us. It's just ours."

Waverly's grin was almost audible; Nicole wanted to reach through the phone and touch her, kiss the smile from her mouth. "Me, too," said Waverly. "I know people will find out that you're my girlfriend eventually, but... I don't want to share you yet."

Running her fingers through her hair, Nicole let out a shaky breath. "Wow. That's the first time we've said that out loud. I'm your girlfriend. You're _my_ girlfriend."

"I am," said Waverly, her voice just above a whisper. Nicole wrapped one arm around herself, drawing it tight. "I'm all yours, Nicole."

* * *

The music video dropped and everything went to hell.

Nicole and Waverly's attraction shone through the screen, setting off a chain reaction of speculation.

 **@WayHaughtIsReal:** god the chemistry in the video is OFF THE CHARTS  
**@WAVES_WAVES_WAVES:** The way Nicole looks at WAVES is [heart eyes emoji]  
**@TooHaughtToHandle:** i want a girl to look at me like that, what do i have to do  
**@WayHaughtIsReal:** be a 5'4" virgo with hair for days

The video of Nicole panicking after her show spread next, and fans latched onto it.

 **@nichaught:** has anyone else seen this video? my precious bb nicole is so bad at lying  
**@WayHaughtIsReal:** if they aren't dating why does she get so scared? secret relationship, 100%  
**@1WaverlyFan:** But what if they aren't together? What if they just like each other but they're not together OMG mutual pining  
**@Hey_Haught:** i ship ittttt

Then photos of their date surfaced.

 **@TooHaughtToHandle:** these pics are blurry but that looks an awful lot like wayhaught kissing  
**@nichaught:** i swear i've seen that shirt on nicole before  
**@WAVES_WAVES_WAVES:** Those are definitely WAVES' earrings; she's worn them a few times: [picture][picture]  
**@nichaught:** IW AS RIGHT OMGGG this pic is straight up from her website lol shoulda thought of that before going on a secret date with the SAME SHIRT: [picture]  
**@WayHaughtIsReal:** I TOLD Y'ALL

Nicole laid back on her bed, scrolling through twitter, digging deeper and deeper into the shit show. It was all there, flung across the internet for everyone to see. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to quell the headache massing behind her eyes. Her phone jangled with Dolls' ringtone.

"How fucked am I?" she asked, before he could speak.

"Calm down," he said. "You're not fucked."

"My secret relationship is smeared all over the internet," she said. "My secret relationship with _WAVES_."

"You're not fucked," he said again. "I've been in touch with Waverly's team—"

She groaned.

"—and though they were caught by surprise, they have a plan. Waverly's going to go dark for a little while, and when you're back in L.A. for the start of the tour, you'll go on a public date to confirm the rumors."

"What does go dark mean?"

His silence burned like poison.

"Dolls?"

"They took her phone."

"What? Why?"

"She was going to take on the issue herself," he said. "They weren't... well, they didn't like what she had to say. You'll be able to talk to her again, soon."

Nicole sat up in bed, fingers snaking through her hair, tugging on the roots. "I have to call her."

"You can't—" he started, but she ended the call and dialed Waverly as fast as she could.

It went straight to voicemail.

She scrolled through her contacts, cursing herself for never bothering to get Wynonna's number. She'd done everything through Dolls; she had no way to contact anyone close to Waverly.

Her phone pinged. It was Dolls, sending her Jeremy's number.

She called it.

"Jeremy?" she cut through his pleasant little introduction. "Are you with Waverly? I can't get ahold of her."

"Um, Miss Earp is... um..."

"I know what happened. Please, I just need to talk to her."

He sighed, his breath heavy with static over the line. "She's not with me. I can give you Wynonna's number. That's probably your best shot."

Armed with the number, she tried again. Her heart thudded like a battering ram against her ribs; bile bubbled in her throat. "Please," she mumbled, as the phone rang. "Please pick up. Please pick up."

"Who's this?" asked Wynonna.

"It's Nicole."

"Haught shot? Thank fucking god, my sister's been losing her mind."

"Is she okay? Does she need anything?" Nicole bounced off of her bed, paced to the wall, and pressed her palm against it. "Can I talk to her?"

"She's not with me," said Wynonna. "They've basically got her on lockdown, dude."

Nicole let her forehead fall against the wall next to her curling fingers. "This is my fault. If I hadn't panicked—"

"This isn't your fault; this is all about obsessed weirdos on the internet and the soulless robots in charge of Waverly's career. Okay?"

Wrinkling her nose, Nicole gave a grunt of assent.

"Good." There was a burst of static on the line as Wynonna fidgeted. "Listen, it might be a bit before either one of us can get to her, but I promise I'll let you know what I know. And before you lose any more of your fucking mind, she gave me a message for you."

Wynonna took a deep breath and spoke in a monotone. "She said she's sorry, and she's all right. She said you shouldn't worry. She misses you and she can't wait to talk to you again. She'll call you as soon as she can. And you should do what Dolls says and not be an idiot. That last part was me. Don't be an idiot."

"Okay," said Nicole. She let out a slow breath, cheeks puffing. "Thanks."

"Yeah, no problem." Nicole heard some shuffling on the other line. She waited. "Hey, Nicole?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell Dolls..." Wynonna groaned. "Uh. You know what, never mind."

"I'll tell him," said Nicole.

"Oh, fuck off," said Wynonna. "See you around, Haught."

Nicole hung up, staring down at the blank screen of her phone. She sighed and tossed it on the bed. Leaving it there, she wandered out of the room. She poured herself a glass of water and sipped, meandering from her tiny kitchen to the living room and back again.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to steady herself. It was fine. Waverly had the best public relations team money could buy. Nicole was in Calgary, far away from eager paparazzi. It would be okay.

But she was alone.

Draining her glass of water, she flopped onto her couch. Her thoughts drifted to Waverly. She ran through the way their conversation might go when she finally spoke to Waverly. They'd be so excited to hear each other's voices. Waverly would understand Nicole's panic when she was asked if they were dating. She might find Nicole's inability to lie cute. Nicole imagined her smile, the light in her eyes, the way those eyes lifted to hers and fluttered closed...

Nicole shut her own eyes, visions of Waverly dancing across the stage of her imagination. The itch ignited, flames licking over her shoulders and down her spine. Her stomach coiled tight; an ache built between her legs.

Her fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her pants. Waverly filled her mind: atop her on the couch. Hair spilling over her shoulder. Her lips on Nicole's. Her hands sliding up Nicole's stomach.

She gasped and shuddered, the fingers of her free hand curled into the couch cushion like talons. She opened her eyes, raised her head. She was alone, and though the heat coursing through her had subsided, the itch was still there.

"God dammit," she whispered. Tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes and she curved over, hands bracketed around the back of her skull, forehead pressed into her knees. It wasn't okay. She wasn't okay. She was alone and she missed Waverly and the hole in her gut got bigger and bigger and nothing fixed it.

Leaping off of the couch, she swept into the kitchen, flinging open her junk drawer. She pawed through it, brushing aside half-used rolls of tape, screwdrivers, loose rubber bands. She pulled out a lighter, but found nothing to light; she'd thrown her cigarettes away when she'd quit, back before she'd started dating Shae.

"God _dammit_ ," she said again. She washed her hands in the kitchen sink, then pulled on a jacket and shoes. With her wallet, her keys and the lighter the only things in her pockets, she rushed out of her apartment, clattered down the stairs, and marched down the street, eyes focused on the nearest convenience store.

She looked a mess, she was sure: eyes red and wet, hair wild, but the clerk barely looked at her as he slid her cigarettes across the counter toward her. She snatched them up and hurried back out of the store, tearing open the package and pulling one out. The lighter clicked beneath her thumb, shielded against the wind; as it lit, just before she brought the flame to the end of the cigarette dangling from her lips, she stopped.

Letting the flame die, she stuffed the lighter back in her pocket and the cigarette back in the pack. Staring down at the package, she sighed, then pocketed it, too, and headed back down the sidewalk toward her apartment.

Back inside, she shuffled into her room and flopped face first onto the bed. She breathed out into her pillowcase, then inhaled; the fabric throttled her breath, leaving her momentarily light-headed. For a second, the itch crawling over her skin abated. When she rolled over to stare at the ceiling and took an uninhibited breath, it returned in force.

Her phone pinged.

 **Shae:** You're a real piece of work!

Nicole stared at her phone, holding it over her face, her eyebrows carving deep troughs in her skin.

 **Shae:** If I want to move to LA, that's a deal breaker for you! But if Waverly fucking Earp so much as looks at you, that's no problem!  
**Shae:** I can't fucking believe you.  
**Shae:** Were you cheating on me?

Nicole's jaw fell open. She huffed, grinding her teeth, and cranked out a reply.

 **Nicole:** I never cheated on you.

 **Shae:** Well, you sure didn't wait very long before moving on to someone else, did you?  
**Shae:** Fuck you, Nicole.  
**Shae:** Don't contact me again.

Clenching her jaw so hard it ached, she stabbed the tiny keyboard as though the force of her typing could make her anger legible.

 **Nicole:** You texted me!

Shae didn't deign to reply. Nicole scowled at her phone again, then sat up, spiking it into her mattress with a wall-shaking "fuck!" Fuck Shae, fuck the paparazzi, fuck the label.

If only she could talk to Waverly, everything would be better. She slipped back into fantasy: Waverly, desperate to contact her, sneaking out of the clutches of her label. Waverly, with Wynonna's help, stealing away to the airport, chartering a private flight, showing up at Nicole's front door and flinging herself into Nicole's arms.

Nicole pressed the heels of her palms into her forehead. The itch creeping over her skin built, pinching, pulling. Then it snapped, recoiling up her spine and shooting up into her jaw like a sucker punch. It wasn't that Waverly _couldn't_ come, she thought. It was that she _wouldn't_.

As soon as the thought flitted into her mind, she straightened, back going ramrod straight. That was an ugly thought. Ugly, unfair, untrue. She shook it away and fled the room as if she could leave it behind.

It dogged her. She brushed her teeth and it whispered in her ear. She showered and it hissed like the water spraying around her. She slipped into bed and turned out the light and it nestled under the covers with her. Waverly could be here if she really wanted to be. If she wanted Nicole enough.

She fought it. Waverly did want to be here. It wasn't her fault. Nicole understood; she'd told Waverly she understood.

But Waverly still wasn't here, and Nicole felt like shattered glass, and she needed someone, anyone to blame.

The ugly thought wormed its way in again, shifting.

 _Okay_ , it seemed to say.  _It's not Waverly's fault. It's someone else's. Think._

She rolled on her side, heart throbbing in her throat.

It wasn't Waverly's fault.

It was Julian's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe this chapter in its entirety to my wife. She read through the first sixteen chapters of this fic in less than 24 hours so that she could have the context to help me take two bad drafts of this chapter and merge them together into what you just read. And this isn't a genre that she enjoys, at all! She got mad at me for thanking her too much, but tough luck for her: she went above and beyond and I'm one lucky bastard to have her in my life.
> 
>  ~~All that said, I'm still not thrilled with this chapter!~~ But trust me that it's leaps and bounds better than what I had before. (Future Goose says: past me should be less self-deprecating.)
> 
> Next time: things aren't always as they seem.
> 
> Follow me on twitter, if you dare [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	18. Chapter 18

Nicole stood across the street from the fire station, hands in the pockets of her jacket, and slowly gathered the gumption to stride across the street and demand to speak to Julian.

She'd woken up that morning, the day after everything went to shit, and every bit of panic and frustration had coalesced in the pit of her stomach into rage at Julian. Julian, who ran off with a married woman. Julian, who found out he had a daughter and couldn't bring himself to be a part of her life.

Julian, who'd scarred his daughter so badly she couldn't go home.

As soon as she'd blinked awake, she reached for her phone and looked him up. Waverly hadn't told her much about him, but in the past few weeks she'd learned he was a firefighter, and finding him was easy enough. He'd smiled at her from a news article about a charity event at his firehouse, and as soon as she'd drained her coffee, she'd flown out the door and marched to the address in her phone.

The street was quiet, save for the whiz of cars on nearby streets and her heartbeat drumming in her ears.

Her fingers clenched into a fist. Her nails bit her palm. She strode across the street.

Firefighters looked up as she poked her head through the open bay and peered around a gleaming firetruck, trying to catch sight of her quarry. Indistinct music wafted around them, pumped into the space by a distant speaker.

"Can I help you?" asked one of the firefighters.

"I'm looking for your captain," she said, stepping fully into the space. "It's a... personal matter."

"Who's looking for me?"

She turned to find Julian rounding the truck, wiping his hands on a rag. He grinned, a lopsided thing, and offered her his hand. His grip was firm; his palm was dry.

"You got a good shake, there," he said, eyes twinking. "Nice to meet you. I'm Julian. And you are?"

"I'm—"

"Wait, wait. I know you!" He crossed his arms; his eyes zipped over her face, up to her hair and down to her shoes. "You're... oh, I know this..." He snapped his fingers. "Nicole Haught! The singer!"

"Yeah, that's me," she said, and waited as the gears of his mind seemed to clank through to his next thought.

"You did a song with Waverly Earp. I liked it a lot." He grinned again, rubbing the gray-flecked stubble on his chin. The way his lips curled tugged at something inside her. "One of my new favorite WAVES songs."

She felt like she had whiplash. Her knees turned to jelly; it was all she could do to keep her balance. "You listen to WAVES?"

His laugh bubbled out of him like a drum roll. "Sure do. Listen." He cupped a hand behind his ear. She focused on the faint music around them and gaped: it was Waverly's newest album.

"Not what you'd expect from an old guy like me, huh?" He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes going distant. "I actually dated her mother back in the day. Never met Waverly, but her music reminds me of old times."

When their eyes met again, he shook his head; his smile had never wavered, but it softened, and he looked so like his daughter that Nicole thought she would faint.

Julian seemed to think so, too. "Whoa, you okay?" He stretched a hand toward her, around her back, as if to catch her if she fell.

"You don't know," she muttered. She shook her head, staring at him wide-eyed.

"Seriously, do you want to come sit down? We've been standing out here for a while, maybe you just need to sit and drink some water?" He rested his hand on her shoulder and she jerked as if he'd stabbed her.

She shimmied out of his grip, shaking her head. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm all set, sorry to bother you. I need to go."

"Well, okay," he said, scratching the top of his head. She started to walk away; her pulse pounded in her ears like a sledgehammer breaking through a wall.

She'd hardly gotten out of the building when he shouted, "hey, wait!" and sprinted to catch up. He darted in front of her, hands held up in appeasement. "What don't I know?"

"It's nothing." She refused to look at him, tried to step past him.

He stepped with her, blocking her way. "Hey," he said, his voice gentle. She looked up and found a ghost. All color had drained from his face, the lines around his eyes had deepened, and he seemed to have aged ten years in an instant. "It's about me and Michelle, isn't it?"

"It's—" She glanced over his shoulder, debating whether or not to break and run. Her eyes slipped back to his; they cracked her open, and the truth bubbled on her tongue, threatening to spill over her lips.

Nicole took a deep breath. "Do you have somewhere we can talk in private?"

* * *

He led her to his office. Despite the wide window behind his desk, the room lay in shadow; the sun shone on the other side of the building. She took the armchair in front of his desk; he sank into a worn, ergonomic desk chair.

"So," he said, leaning on his elbows.

"So." She gripped her hands in her lap; one of her legs bobbed like a woodpecker searching for dinner. "I really don't think I should be the one telling you this. I probably shouldn't even be here."

He folded his hands and pressed his tangled fingers to his lips, hiding everything but his eyes. "Probably not," he said. "But you're here and you opened the can of worms. Can't leave me hanging now."

She swallowed. He waited.

"Waverly is your daughter," she said, her voice like a gunshot, cracking the silence in the room. "Not Ward's."

Julian's eyebrows scrunched tight. His Adam's apple bobbed. Nicole clenched her folded hands in her lap, knuckles blazing white.

"Shit." His eyes slipped closed. His breaths fell like sand through an hourglass. When he looked at Nicole again, redness had seeped into the whites of his eyes; water glistened in the corners. "Give me a second."

Stilling her bouncing leg, she waited for him to collect himself. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

Her nails dug into her knee. He ran his hand over his hair.

"How do you know?" he asked, still staring up and away.

"Waverly told me," she said. His eyes slid down to her, and one eyebrow twitched. Color dusted her cheeks. "We're... close."

"Close." He nodded, then righted himself. Pulling open one of his drawers, he fished out a picture frame and cradled it on the desk, focusing on it. "So she doesn't want to see me? Waverly?"

"She... she thinks you know about her."

His jaw clenched. He pressed his mouth to his diamond-hard fist. As he stared at the picture, his face seemed to soften.

"My kid," he said, his voice near a whisper. His thumb brushed the photo in his hands. "Michelle didn't want kids. I didn't care. I was just happy with what we had. See?"

He handed the picture across the desk. His face beamed up at Nicole from the photo, pressed close against a woman who had to be Waverly's mother. She smiled too, enfolded in Julian's arms.

"I met Wynonna once," he said. Nicole handed back the photograph and he stowed it away. "She showed up at our apartment out of the blue. I opened the door and she was leaning there, stumbling drunk, and she pointed a finger at me and said, 'are you the bastard who's been fucking my mom?'" He lifted his own finger, his voice rising as he imitated Wynonna.

"Sounds like her."

"They got into a screaming fight." He shook his head. "Right there in the living room, and I stood there staring, watching everything fall apart in front of me."

His head fell into his waiting hands; he sighed, shoulders heaving. "I didn't know she had kids. I knew she was married. I thought I was saving her from her piece of shit husband." He tried to drag a smile onto his lips but managed only a grimace. "Didn't realize I'd ruined three kids' lives in the process."

"I'm sorry," said Nicole.

"It's okay," he said. "I've made my peace with it."

The clock on his wall announced each passing second. Nicole's foot started tapping again. "Are you going to contact her? Waverly?"

Julian stilled, as though his brain needed every last ounce of energy to process the question. He pursed his lips. "Would she want me to?"

"I... she..." Nicole bit her lip. "I don't know if... I don't think I should tell you. Everything she told me about you, she told me in confidence and I... I'm already breaking that, being here. I think you need to figure that out on your own."

She pressed her hand over her mouth. "God," she whispered. "What am I doing here?"

When she looked up, he was staring at his hands, frowning, chewing the inside of his cheek. His next breath seemed to rattle him, knocking him out of his trance. He shook his head. "I need to think about all this."

"I guess you do," she said. Electricity saturated her skin. She shot out of her seat, racing toward the door. "I should go."

"Wait, hold on." He rounded the desk, catching her by the elbow. He dropped it as soon as she whirled on him, her face like a thunderhead. "Are you going to tell her about this?"

She grabbed the doorknob. "Of course."

"Don't. Please."

With a sigh, she let go and turned back to him. "Why?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I need a little time. To figure out... I need time. If you tell her I know about her and she doesn't hear from me right away... I don't want to do that to her."

Nicole slipped her hands into her pockets. Tension coiled in her shoulders, in her neck. She wouldn't look at him.

"I don't—" Nicole choked on her words. She swallowed, tried again. "I don't want to lie to her."

"I just need a little time," he said again.

She looked up and found him smiling. It hit her like a blow to the gut.

"Please," he said.

With a sigh, she dragged her eyes away from his. "I'll think about it." She turned on her heel, flung open the door, and left the firehouse behind as fast as she could.

* * *

As soon as she rounded the corner and put the firehouse out of eyesight, Nicole called Dolls.

Rather, she tried to call Dolls. He didn't pick up. She tried again and got his voicemail a second time.

The anger that had driven her to the fire station shifted into anxiety that barred her from going home. She caught sight of her building and her stomach clenched; she took another street, another direction.

As she walked, her mind raced. She'd messed everything up, talking to Julian. She never should have gone looking for him. Damn him. Damn his smile, so like his daughter's.

Her feet led her to a park, and she found a bench; the metal chilled her through her jeans. Her boiling anxiety seeped away, cooling to a simmer. She exhaled and let herself think.

Nicole didn't owe Julian anything. Her only allegiance was to Waverly.

Waverly, who already thought Julian didn't want her. Waverly, who seemed to hold the broken pieces of herself together with scotch tape, Wynonna, and sheer willpower.

What would telling her about Julian do to that precarious balance? Especially if he didn't call her right away.

What if he never called her?

Nicole shook her head. She pulled out her phone and dialed Waverly's phone before she could second-guess herself. Waverly's canned voice greeted her, encouraging her to leave a message.

"Hey, Waves," said Nicole. "I know you're still under lock and key, but I need to talk to you about something. Give me a call when you get a chance. I miss you."

Phone still clutched in her fingers, Nicole leaned back. Clouds scudded across the blindingly blue sky. A breeze rippled past her, laden with the scent of woodchips and the happy shrieks of children from the playground nearby.

Nicole's phone vibrated against her knee. She took one look at the caller ID and scrambled to answer it.

"Hi, Wynonna? Is she okay?"

"Hey," said Waverly, and Nicole bit her knuckle to stop herself from crying. "Did you miss me?"

"Waverly?" The ground opened up beneath Nicole; she gripped the bench for balance. "Oh my god. They let you go? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said Waverly. "Really. They didn't kidnap me. What did Wynonna tell you?"

"She said you were on lockdown. They took your phone!" Her mind seemed to peel in two: one part of her desperate just to hear Waverly's voice, the other shouting at her to confess what she'd just done.

Waverly sighed. "I know. The phone technically belongs to them. I was _maybe sort of_ about to go on a rant on my social media calling some of my fans 'shit tickets'. But then we really did just have a long night of _strategizing_." Nicole could hear the air quotes around the word. "I passed out in the office."

"Okay," said Nicole. "As long as you're all right."

"I'm fine," said Waverly. "But you're sweet for worrying. Are you okay?"

"I'm... I don't know." Nicole sucked on her teeth; she pressed her hand over her chest, trying to quell her racing heart. "Last night was rough. Shae texted me."

"What did she say?"

"She accused me of cheating on her with you."

"But..." Waverly sputtered like an engine trying to turn over. "You... you didn't! We... I would never!"

"I know, baby. We didn't. But she—I didn't handle it well. I..." Nicole's heart still strained against its moorings, trying to rip itself free. "I did something I shouldn't have."

"Nicole," said Waverly, her voice soft like the wind through a forest canopy, "what did you do?"

Squeezing her eyes together, Nicole gathered up the words. Her jaw shook under the weight; she slammed it closed, teeth grinding.

Waverly's face swam in her mind. Then Julian's. _I need time_. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Tears stung her eyes.

"Nicole?"

"I bought cigarettes," said Nicole around a gasp like waking from a nightmare. "I couldn't..."

"You smoke?"

"I used to. I quit years ago." Her stomach heaved, suddenly sour. "I didn't smoke any, but I came close."

"Oh, baby," said Waverly. "I'm sorry you had to go through that alone. Let me make it up to you when you come back."

Nicole let out a long, slow breath. "What did you have in mind?"

"Let me take you out on another date. In public this time. Dolls probably told you we have to do it anyway to make my PR people happy... but let's make it ours. Let's hold hands, let's make out where everyone can see us. I want everyone to see that I snagged Nicole Haught."

The laugh that escaped Nicole was ragged and worn. "I think most people will see it the other way around."

"They can think what they want," said Waverly. "I know I'm the lucky one."

Guilt washed over Nicole at Waverly's words, her stomach twisting, a sheen of cold sweat coating the back of her neck. "Waverly—"

"You better not be arguing this with me!" Waverly laughed, and Nicole clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling a sob.

"Baby..." Waverly's voice grew louder, as if she'd drawn the phone closer to her lips. "Are you all right? What is it?"

 _Last chance_ , Nicole thought.

She gathered herself. "Nothing. It's nothing. I'm just..." She took a deep breath. "I'm so happy you're in my life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please refer to alternate title.
> 
> Next week: the tour begins!
> 
> If you need to yell at me you can do so here or on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	19. Chapter 19

Nicole and Dolls disembarked from their plane and headed out of the airport to find Randy Nedley waiting for them. He offered Dolls a handshake and an approving nod. Nicole got the same handshake, followed by a half-pat, half-squeeze to her shoulder that surprised her and Nedley both.

As they drove to their hotel, Nicole worked on drawing him out; with Dolls absorbed in work in the back seat, complete with noise-cancelling headphones, she found Nedley eager to talk.

"I tell you, I'm excited about this tour," he said.

"I didn't know you were coming too," said Nicole, flashing him a grin from the passenger seat.

His eyes twinkled. "This is my first one. I'm driving Waverly's bus. Never done it before... it's a lot of driving for these old bones. I'm only gonna be with you for half of it, though. I'm finally taking a trip home after Dallas."

"Finally!" She laughed. "I'm really excited for you. I know you've missed it."

"I have." He peeled one hand from the steering wheel to rub at his stubble. "It's been too long."

"If you don't mind my asking," she said, watching herself in the side mirror, "what's kept you away from Purgatory all these years?"

He pursed his lips. She dragged her eyes to him and waited.

"My little girl," he said, his words snapping through the hum of the air conditioning. "My Chrissy. I lost her about three years ago."

"I'm so sorry," said Nicole.

He exhaled, his breath rattling the bristles of his mustache. Remembering Dolls, she twisted in her seat to find him still engrossed in his work, her conversation with Nedley passing him by. She turned back, staring at the cars ahead of them. "Is that why you moved here?"

He nodded. "Chrissy and Waverly were best friends, ever since they were itty bitty things. She flew out here once, visitin' Waverly. I think that was the most fun she'd ever had. Couldn't stop talking about it."

Nedley readjusted his grip on the steering wheel, the faux leather squeaking under his palms. "Waverly called me up, after. I think her Aunt Gus told her I was in a bad way. She offered me a job out here. I'm not sure she expected me to take it."

"That sounds like her," said Nicole, a smile rising to her lips like a flower blooming for the sun.

"She's a good kid," he said. The shadow of a frown crept onto his face. "I heard what folks are sayin' about the two of you. I don't think I have to ask if there's any truth in it."

She gulped. "No, I think you've got a pretty good idea."

He narrowed his eyes, dragging them from the road for a moment to squint at her. "You're serious about her?"

"Dead serious," said Nicole.

"Good." He nodded, then said quieter, "that's good."

They pulled up to the hotel. Nedley slipped out of the car to collect their bags from the trunk. Like the first time they'd arrived in the city, he escorted them to their room. Dolls took the bags inside. Before following him, Nicole turned to offer Nedley a handshake.

He took her hand in his, gave it a brisk shake, and did not let go. She looked down, then up, confusion etched in her face.

"It may not mean much coming from me," said Nedley, slowly, "but I hope it works out for you kids. You're good for her."

"I--" she said, fighting to breathe as if he'd punched her in the stomach. "I don't--"

He dropped her hand and fixed her with a stern gaze. "It's the damn truth, so no arguin'. I'll see you later for your night out with Waverly. Take care of yourself."

Then he left, and Nicole wandered into the suite in a daze.

"You okay?" asked Dolls. He'd set up shop on the couch, his laptop already out and running, notebooks and loose sheets of paper arranged in front of him.

She blinked and shook away the fog surrounding her. "Oh. Yeah. I'm fine."

"Something's up with you," he said. He twisted on the couch to take her in fully, rubbing his chin as he studied her. "You know you can tell me anything."

"I know." She shoved her hands in her pockets. "Nothing's up with me. I promise."

"All right," he said. With one last, measured glance, he turned back to his work.

* * *

The label had planned out Nicole and Waverly's first public date down to the minute. It was an outing in three parts.

First:

Nedley picked Nicole up outside her hotel. Waverly waited in the back of the car; as soon as Nicole slid inside and the door shut behind her, Waverly pulled Nicole in and kissed her.

"I missed you," they both said, their words tumbling together, lost in the cacophony of their breaths, their gasps, the rustle of fabric as they pulled themselves as close as physics would allow. Nicole broke the kiss to nuzzle the side of Waverly's neck. She inhaled, reveling in the feel of Waverly's skin and the tug of Waverly's hands in her hair.

"I'm so happy you're here," said Waverly, when they pulled away. She held Nicole's face in her hands, just far enough from her own that their eyes could meet and focus and drink each other in. Nicole grinned, and Waverly giggled, pressing her lips to Nicole's cheek. "I missed that dimple!"

They toppled toward each other again, until Nedley interrupted their laughter, clearing his throat from the front of the car. They pulled apart, but their hands rested on the seat between them, tangled together.

Second:

They arrived at an upscale restaurant for dinner. Photographers waited outside. Nicole slipped out of the car first; their shouts buffeted her, trying to drag her attention in all directions. Then Waverly was at her side, slipping her arm about Nicole's waist. The touch anchored Nicole; her focus tapered to the weight of it, the warmth of it through her shirt. She draped her own arm over Waverly's shoulders and let Waverly lead them inside.

Their dinner was at the label's expense, and Waverly made them pay dearly for it. They drank and ate and laughed. Waverly's foot traced the inside of Nicole's leg, rucking the fabric of Nicole's pants. Nicole's eyes fluttered closed. Then she collected herself and twisted the moment back on Waverly, gazing at her over the rim of her wineglass. She raised one eyebrow and allowed a smile to unfurl on her lips, slow and inviting. Waverly drew a shaky breath and bit her lip, her foot traveling higher.

Then the waiter arrived to take their plates, and the moment broke, leaving them breathless and giggling.

After dinner, they stumbled onto the sidewalk outside, hands tangled. The photographers shouted again, but they swept past all of them. Before they reached Nedley's waiting car, Waverly buried her fist in the fabric of Nicole's shirt and tugged her close.

"The label wants a kiss," she said, rising on her tiptoes. Her hands brushed Nicole's hair back from her forehead, then let it fall. "Ready to give them way more than they bargained for?"

Nicole answered by drawing Waverly in, meeting her with a kiss that never seemed to end. She forgot how to breathe, forgot how to stand; swaying, she pulled herself away, her bottom lip throbbing from the crush of Waverly's teeth. The crowd frothed, cameras flashed, shutters snapped, and Waverly's smile drowned it all out.

"What next?" asked Nicole, as they slipped into Nedley's car.

"Next," said Waverly, "we play hooky. Nedley?" She leaned toward him, grinning.

"You got it, kid," he said, winking at her in the mirror.

They drove out of the city proper, the buildings shrinking, and Waverly refused to tell Nicole their location. Nicole watched out the window, and when she saw the stadium rising in the distance, she turned to Waverly, eyes wide.

"Is that...?"

"The first stop on the tour," said Waverly. "Starting tomorrow, our schedules are going to be so busy, we won't have a moment to breathe. I want you to see this before everything gets overwhelming."

Nedley parked and Waverly led them inside; the few people they passed nodded at her, letting them pass.

They wound through the maze of the backstage area and stepped onto the stage. The lights were out and darkness surrounded them, but in the light of the moon they could make out the seats arranged on the field, the stands sweeping toward the sky.

"Wow," said Nicole. "This is... that's so many people."

Waverly, arm wrapped around Nicole's waist, squeezed her hip. "All cheering for you."

Nicole exhaled, slow and unsteady. She shook her head and dragged her eyes to Waverly. Waverly looked up, gazing at Nicole, her eyes gleaming with moonlight.

"So where are we supposed to be right now?" asked Nicole.

"Some nightclub," said Waverly. "Somewhere people could record blurry videos of us dancing to post on the internet."

With a hum, Nicole pressed a kiss to Waverly's temple. "Not a fan of that idea?"

Waverly shrugged. "It's not that I wouldn't want to dance with you. I just... we gave them their show."

"And then some."

"And then some. Now you're all mine. And I've got just enough authority to sneak us in here."

Nicole's arm hung around Waverly's shoulders; her fingertips skimmed from Waverly's shoulder, down the curve of her bicep and back again. "It pays to be the boss, huh?"

"I'm not the boss. Not even close." Waverly leaned her head on Nicole's shoulder. "Do you remember when you told me I should go independent?"

"Yeah," said Nicole, recalling the fuzzy memory: standing in an elevator next to Waverly, her stomach a cauldron of jealousy and her mind a minefield of guilt.

"I kept thinking about that. After you said it. I've been talking with some people. I'm going to do it."

Nicole stared down at Waverly; Waverly burrowed into Nicole's shirt. "That's amazing," said Nicole, and Waverly tipped her face upward.

"Yeah? It's not a terrible idea?"

With a smile, Nicole leaned down to press a feather-light kiss to Waverly's lips. "Definitely not. If it makes you happy, you should do it."

Waverly caught Nicole and held her for another, firmer kiss. "You make me happy."

Nicole started to smile, then froze, eyes wide, lips barely parted. Her stomach like the contents of a witch's cauldron. "Waverly..."

"Oh, gosh," said Waverly, as she parsed Nicole's expression. "I didn't mean it like that."

Speeding back through their conversation like rewinding a videotape, Nicole found the accidental innuendo and fought down a guttural laugh. "Are you sure?" she asked, her grin spreading like wildfire. "I wouldn't be opposed."

"Is that so?" Waverly narrowed her eyes, but her smile matched Nicole's. Rising on her tiptoes, her lips brushed Nicole's ear. "Prove it."

Then her hands threaded through Nicole's hair, her lips sought Nicole's, and Nicole forgot how to think.

* * *

On opening night, Nicole sat in her dressing room, bent over her knees, headphones nestled over her ears. Her clasped hands bounced with the music; her heart tried to beat in rhythm, but could manage only painful, spurting bursts. With her eyes closed and her favorite music enveloping her, Nicole didn't notice the door opening or someone slipping into the room.

Waverly tapped on her shoulder. Nicole tugged her headphones off. "Hey," she said, through a throat constricting like a knot.

"Hey you. I came to check in on you." Waverly wore a dressing gown; her hair and makeup had already been done. Nicole lifted her hand and Waverly took it, letting Nicole draw her down into her lap.

"I'm a little nervous." Nicole's fingers played with the belt of Waverly's robe, slipping beneath the band, flicking at the loops guiding it around her waist.

"Me too." Waverly's thumb brushed Nicole's neck, and warmth spread through the spot and through Nicole's body, loosening the tightness in her chest and shoulders. "It's normal. You're going to do so well, though. They're going to love you."

Dropping her head onto Waverly's shoulder, Nicole sighed. "I hate this waiting. I want to get out there already."

Waverly hummed. "But then I wouldn't have time to do this." She cupped Nicole's cheeks, tilted Nicole's head back, and kissed her. Nicole sank into Waverly, her fingers drawing creases in Waverly's robe.

When they pulled apart, Nicole's chest heaved. She leaned in again; her eyes fell to Waverly's lips.

"Um, baby?" she said, as Waverly's eyes fluttered closed and she tried to close the gap between them. "Your makeup..."

"Whatever," said Waverly, and that was enough for Nicole. They collided again, only pulling apart when someone knocked on Nicole's door and called out that she had ten minutes left.

Waverly giggled. "You're a mess."

Nicole tried to straighten her hair and wiped the back of her hand across her lips; it came away stained with color. "Whose fault is that?"

"Takes two to tango," sang Waverly. She hopped out of Nicole's lap, then bent down and pecked Nicole's cheek. "You've got this."

As she left, Nicole stood, drawing in a breath as though to fill herself from tip to toe. It left her in a rush, taking with it her anxiety and fear. She wiped Waverly's makeup from her face and surveyed her reflection. "You've got this," she said to it, and her reflection grinned.

* * *

Nicole waited backstage, her guitar slung around her shoulder and lightning crackling over her skin. She bobbed on her feet, shaking out her fingers. At her cue, she strode onto the stage, one hand aloft; a roar like crashing tides buffeted her.

She took her place in front of her microphone; the crowd was a mass of dark shapes veiled by the glare of the spotlights.

"How is everyone tonight?" asked Nicole, and her answer was a howl of joy and anticipation.

Her heart hammered her chest like a bass drum and adrenaline scorched her veins. "Sounds like you're ready to have a good time!" She grinned. They screamed.

This was it. She let out a sharp breath, steadied herself, and dove in.

If performing on small stages had been a thrill, this was a shot of amphetamine delivered straight to her heart. No eyes to meet, no body language to read, just a roiling crowd with voices to match.

She leaned into the microphone. It tickled her lips. Her fingers darted over the strings of her guitar, teasing wails from it. A deep sob: her body went loose and easy. A screech: she pulled up, stiff and straight.

The first, hectic song gave way to cheers. As the crowd called for more, Nicole slipped into the second, slower song, building it up before they'd even noticed. By the time she started singing again, she'd lassoed them and dragged them right along with her.

Who needed cigarettes? Sweat beaded on the tip of her nose and she let it fall, splattering the stage, her shoes, she didn't know. She was sure if she looked, the hairs on her arms would be standing bolt upright. The crowd's cheers, the amplifiers' pulsing, the lights hot like desert sun: they filled her.

She led the crowd through the rest of her set, finishing with a final, screeching note. They screamed for her, whistled for her, their hands and phones aloft.

She raised her own hands, smiling as wide as Waverly, waving to each and every one of them. "Thank you!" she shouted. "Thank you so much, you've been amazing! Now, who's ready for WAVES?"

If she'd thought their cries were loud before, it was nothing compared to the avalanche of shrieks that greeted Waverly's name. She laughed, and then her time was up; she floated on a raft of adoration to the shore of backstage.

With single-minded determination, she tracked down Waverly. She found her with Jeremy and a team of assistants, all checking her costume, her makeup, her hair.

"Baby," said Nicole, out of breath, and when their eyes met, Waverly flung herself at Nicole.

"You did it!" she said, hanging from her arms around Nicole's neck. "How was it?"

"Amazing," said Nicole. "It was amazing."

"I wish I didn't have to be on now," said Waverly. "I want to kiss you so bad." She dropped back to the ground, framing Nicole's face in her hands. Her thumb brushed Nicole's lips and Nicole kissed the pad, catching Waverly's wrist in her fingers.

"Waverly, I..."

She stumbled. _I love you_ , she'd thought. It burned on her tongue like a coal, trapped by a lie. She couldn't say it. Not while she was keeping a secret from Waverly.

So she caught herself. She bent closer, her breath tickling Waverly's ear. "I'm going to do so much more than kiss you when you get off that stage later."

"Waverly?" said Jeremy behind them, eyes wide and fingers tapping his clipboard. "You've got to be on stage in, like, thirty seconds."

Waverly shoved Nicole away, glaring at her. "You're trouble, did you know that?"

"Guilty as charged, Waves." Nicole shoved her hands in her pockets. Waverly gave one last shake of her head, then smiled, and Nicole's gut exploded like fireworks. She watched Waverly go, sighing as she disappeared into the wings. "Guilty as charged."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I retro-killed Chrissy! It was awfully rude of me.
> 
> Next week: Two months later...
> 
> Follow me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	20. Chapter 20

Two months passed. Two months of performing two or three shows a week, then piling into tour buses to start the next leg of the journey. Two months of Nicole leaving her own bus to share a bed with Waverly. Two months of pit-stop dates and bouncing song ideas off of each other and sex that got better the more they had it.

Two months of keeping two secrets: Nicole was in love with Waverly. Nicole had spoken to Julian.

It was time for another performance. Nicole had finished her solo act, had donned her suit. Waiting below the stage, hands in her pockets, Nicole bit her lip and pondered the secrets swirling in her head and the guilt bubbling in her gut. She'd almost blurted out "I love you" more times than she could count: watching Waverly wake up, bleary-eyed and cotton-mouthed; leaning against the bus and sharing french fries at a gas station somewhere in Arizona; twirling Waverly in her arms after every show.

She bit down on the words each time, chewing them up and swallowing them. She couldn't say those words, not while she kept Julian's secret for him. Not while she waited for him to figure out if he could be the father Waverly deserved.

It had been two months. She was done waiting. She'd given him a fair chance, and Waverly deserved the truth.

The ground beneath her started to move; the platform started to rise. She spun her guitar around, let it settle in her hands.

Smoke greeted her as her head crested the floor of the stage, curling over the surface and pouring over the edges to pool at her feet. More of her came into view and the crowd cheered like a kettle come to a boil. Nicole waved, grinning into the froth of light and sound around her.

Waverly was clearer, sharper than all of it. Her clothes and smile sparkled. Nicole played the first few notes of their song, drawing shrieks from the crowd. Waverly's smile, Nicole's guitar, the crowd's reaction: after two months, they had it down to a science. After two months, it thrilled Nicole just the same as it had on day one.

"Fancy seeing you here," said Waverly, her laughter echoed by thousands of voices.

"I couldn't let you play our song without me," said Nicole, taking her place next to Waverly, "could I?"

They fell into the song together. Waverly sang while Nicole played, watching the swell of bodies surrounding them, before turning her attention back to Nicole. She smiled around the words, grinning even wider when Nicole's voice twined with hers.

Nicole closed the distance between them, leaning in to share Waverly's microphone. Their faces hovered inches apart, and Nicole let her eyes fall to Waverly's lips. People whooped as close-ups of their faces flashed on the giant screens above. Nicole bit her lip, ceding the lyrics to Waverly again.

They joined for the last chorus, and Nicole eased them into the end of the song with a few more notes from her guitar. The stadium filled with clapping and cheers; in the murmuring that followed, someone shouted, "now kiss!"

The cry echoed throughout the stadium and drew howls from everyone. Nicole laughed. Waverly shrugged. She grabbed Nicole by her lapels, pulled herself up on her tiptoes, and tangled their lips together.

Nicole lost the crowd, lost everything but Waverly's lips on hers and Waverly's costume beneath her fingers. When she came up for air, wolf whistles pierced her eardrums.

Two months, but that... that was new.

Waverly gave her a light shove. "All right, get going," she said.

Nicole exited, borne away by a giggling crowd and the ghost of Waverly's kiss.

* * *

In her dressing room, as Waverly's performance was drawing to a close, Nicole loosened her tie and poured herself two fingers of whiskey. She closed her eyes, savoring the burn as it made its way to her stomach. When she opened them again, she saw Wynonna, framed in her doorway. Wynonna glared, her fists knotted at her sides.

"Whoa," said Nicole. "Uh, I definitely haven't been hiding the whiskey from you."

"You're a real piece of work," said Wynonna. She crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides, forcing Nicole back.

"What are you talking about?"

"You lying, sneaky, dirty—"

"Hey!" The backs of Nicole's legs hit her dressing room couch, and she threw up her hands to ward off Wynonna's advance. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You talked to her dad!"

Wynonna's words shattered the ice beneath Nicole's feet, plunging her into a freezing lake. Fighting for air, she said, "how did you...?"

Wynonna threatened Nicole with a feral grin. "My mama called. She got a call from her ex, drunk as a skunk and beyond pissed that she hid a kid from him. Mama apparently grew a conscience and wanted to be the one to tell Waverly about him."

Giving Nicole a look of disgust, Wynonna turned toward the vanity and took Nicole's bottle of whiskey. She didn't bother with a glass, just upended the bottle and let whiskey dribble from the corners of her mouth.

Wiping her chin with her sleeve, Wynonna unwrapped one finger from the neck of the bottle and aimed it at Nicole. "How the hell could you do that and not tell Waverly? You know she's got, like, three dad complexes, right? No, I know you know, she tells me things. Too many things."

Wynonna shuddered and took another drink. "You're going to apologize. Right now. March your ass over to her dressing room, get on your knees, and beg forgiveness. And then, if you're lucky, I won't kick your fucking ass to hell and back."

"Wynonna?"

Nicole and Wynonna turned to find Waverly standing in the doorway, only half out of her costume, arms wrapped around herself like a cage.

"Babygirl," said Wynonna. She hurried to her sister's side, resting her hands on Waverly's shoulders.

"You said you were getting me a glass of water."

"I was, but her door was open and I was angry and... I'm sorry."

Wynonna pulled Waverly into a hug. From behind Wynonna, Nicole could just see the top of Waverly's head, watched Waverly's arms loop around Wynonna's back and her fingers dig into Wynonna's jacket. Waverly cried, and Wynonna stroked her hair.

Nicole stood where Wynonna had left her. She ran her hand over her tie, flattening it against her chest.

"I'm okay," said Waverly, after a while. She pulled away from Wynonna, wiping the corners of her eyes.

"You sure? You want me to yell at Nicky some more?"

"No, I'll talk to her."

Wynonna kissed Waverly's forehead. "Okay," she said. "If you need anything, I've got a pretty good idea where we could hide the body."

With that, she left, and Waverly eased the door shut behind her.

Nicole's mouth was full of cotton, her stomach full of lead. "Waves—"

"How could you?" Waverly stood stock still, her jaw rigid, her eyes still wet.

"I—"

"No, you know what, I don't care. You should never have gone to see him without me. And you had no right to keep that from me."

Nicole shoved her hands into her pockets. "I know. I messed up."

"You didn't just mess up." Waverly pressed her palm to her brow, closed her eyes, and sucked in a breath as though to stopper the wail building in her throat. "You messed up and then you hid it from me. For months."

"I'm... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was going to tell you tonight."

Waverly crossed her arms. "It's too late."

"Yeah." Nicole pressed her hand to her stomach, just beneath her ribs, trying to ease the ache building there. "I guess it is."

Waverly narrowed her eyes. "Stop agreeing with me!"

Tears stung the corners of Nicole's eyes and slid down her cheeks to cling at the underside of her jaw. She wiped away what she could. "I'm sorry, I—Waverly, wait—"

With a strangled, frustrated scream, Waverly stormed toward the door. At Nicole's plea, she stopped. She rounded on Nicole again. "Why? After everything I told you, why would you lie to me?"

Julian's voice rattled around Nicole's skull. He'd asked her to keep a secret. She'd kept it: for him, for his daughter, to give him a chance to greet his only child with enthusiasm and hope. To give Waverly a chance to have a father who wanted her.

Nicole sank onto her couch, gritting her teeth. "It was stupid."

"Obviously. I still want to know."

"He..." Nicole shook her head, resting her forehead in her palm. He'd been terrified. A grown daughter, world-famous, wonderful. He'd wanted time.

Giving it to him had been her decision. She wouldn't lay blame anywhere else.

Lifting her head, Nicole met Waverly's eyes and trembled. The gaze that met hers was bright with fire and heavy with smoke, every bit of it deserved.

"I knew I messed up," said Nicole. "As soon as I saw him, I knew I fucked up. I should have turned and left but I... I didn't. And I should have told you about it the minute it happened, but I didn't. I was scared that if you knew, you'd... you'd..."

"That I'd dump your sorry ass?"

Nicole shut her eyes, reeling as if Waverly had punched her in the teeth. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"You're damn right I am." Waverly straightened, extended one arm toward the door. "Get out."

Every joint seemed to grind as Nicole stood, as though Waverly's words had rusted her through. She stared at Waverly, felt another round of tears ready to fall.

"Waverly—"

"Don't talk to me. There's nothing you could say that would... just get out."

Like a rusty hinge, Nicole started to move. She rose from the couch. Crossed the room. Passed Waverly. When she reached the door, she braced herself in the open doorway. Turning back, she found tears painting trails on Waverly's cheeks, identical to the ones on her own.

"Waverly, I'm... I'm so sorry, please just—"

A sob escaped Waverly's gnashing teeth. She swiped at her tears, leaving her cheeks even redder than before. "Stop it. You can't—! Go. Please. Just... go."

Nicole's knuckles burned white on the doorjamb. Then she let go, releasing herself like a feather into a hurricane, and left Waverly behind.

* * *

Dolls found her outside the venue, sitting in the parking lot, leaning against the tire of the tour bus.

"What did you do?" He had his hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

"What didn't I do?" Her head lolled back, bumping the rubber behind it.

Wind tousled her hair. She pulled it out of her face and found Dolls frowning.

"Jeremy told me you're off the tour," he said.

"Oh." She licked her lips. "Yeah, that makes sense. Waverly dumped me."

"What?"

Nicole shrugged. "She dumped me."

"Why?"

"I messed up."

Dolls watched her for a moment, then took a seat next to her. "You're going to get your suit dirty."

"It doesn't matter. I'm off the tour. I'm out of Waverly's life. I'll never wear this suit again."

"Are you drunk?"

She shook her head. "Wynonna stole my whiskey. I'm just... I'm not anything right now."

Like a chess grandmaster pondering his next move, Dolls studied her. She fidgeted under his gaze.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I betrayed her trust. I tried to help and I made things worse. And now Waverly hates me."

"She doesn't hate you."

"You didn't see her face." She pulled her knees up to her chest, locking her arms around them. "How soon do you think we can get on a flight home?"

He took out his phone. She watched his screen. "We need two tickets," she said, as he started inputting basic search information. "You only put one."

Dolls ran the search and started scrolling through results. "I'm not coming."

She squinted, tipping her head to study him. "I don't understand."

"I'm staying here. For now. I'm..." He locked his phone, tipped his head back, and frowned at the sky. "I'm technically not allowed to tell you this. But I've been working with Waverly to set up her own independent label."

"Oh," she whispered, letting her eyes join his in searching the heavens. "I knew about that, but... I didn't know you..."

"No one knows," he said. "I signed the NDA to rule all NDAs."

She felt as though a belt cinched around her ribs, tightening with each word. "So what happens when you leave? What am I supposed to do then? I lucked into you, Dolls. I don't know how to hire someone."

"I was going to try to sign you," he said. "I also set up alternative plans in case that didn't work out. You'll be fine."

"My girlfriend just broke up with me and my best friend is abandoning me to go work for her. I'm not going to be fine."

He worked tension out of his jaw. "I know you're pissed, but don't take it out on me."

"I'm sorry. That was out of line." Her ears burned with guilt. She reached out, searched for his hand, squeezed it quickly. "I'm happy for you. I mean that. It's just buried under a lot of bad feelings right now."

He squeezed her hand back, then let it drop. "I know. I'm really sorry about Waverly, by the way. If you need anything—"

"No. No, thanks, but I'm... I'll let you know." She shook her head. Wind rolled across the parking lot, seeping through her jacket and drawing goosebumps on her skin. She shivered and clambered to her feet. "I think I just want to be alone. If that's all right."

"Of course." He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "I might be working for her soon, but I've always got your back. You know that, right?"

She did know it. She told him with a hug.

When he left, she exhaled; emptying her lungs left her feeling like a wrung-out dishcloth. She rounded the front of the bus and climbed inside, heading for the closet where she'd stashed everything she hadn't already moved into Waverly's bus.

In the pocket of one jacket, she found what she was looking for: a crushed package of cigarettes and her lighter. She headed outside again, leaning against the bus and bracing herself against the wind, which had whipped itself into a lather.

Pulling a cigarette from the box, she let it dangle between her fingers. The thumb of her other hand traced the edge of the lighter's wheel. She made no move to bring them together.

"Don't you know those are bad for you?" said someone coming around the front of the bus. Nedley shuffled into view, his collar turned up against the wind.

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," she said.

He grunted. "I quit ages ago. When my ex-wife was pregnant with Chrissy."

"Smart." Nicole sighed. The package sat in her hand, wrinkled and worn. "Oh, fuck it."

She wound up and threw the carton across the parking lot as hard as she could. It flashed in the orange glow of the street lights, then plummeted, slapping to earth somewhere in the tangle of cars and buses.

"Well, that's one way to quit," he said, watching the trajectory. "You've got a good arm."

"I played a little softball," she said.

He nodded. They stood beside each other, hands in their pockets, staring into the distance.

"So I guess you're headin' back to the city?" he asked.

"Guess so," she said.

He nodded. Rubbed the back of his neck. Scratched the top of his head. "You remember I'm goin' to Purgatory soon?"

"Yeah?"

"Well..." He cleared his throat. "The city isn't that far from Purgatory. If you wanted to drop by while I'm there, you could. If you wanted to. If it's not too much after... well, you know."

She stared at him, eyebrows arcing, eyes wide.

He scowled, and even in the darkness she thought she detected a bit of color on his cheeks. "Never mind."

"No, I'll do it," she said, before she could stop herself.

They regarded each other, sad young woman and gruff old man, surprised and concerned for themselves and for each other.

"It wouldn't be just a trip down memory lane, mind you," he said. "I can't sit idle so I've got a bit of a job fixing up an old property."

"I'm handy," said Nicole. "Plus, it'll keep my mind off things."

"There's nothing else to do there."

"I'll bring my guitar. It'll give me time to write."

A smile tickled the edge of Nedley's mustache. "Well, all right, then," he said.

Her smile was small, but true. "All right, then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Next week: Purgatory.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	21. Chapter 21

The countryside rolled past Nicole's window, green and brown and blue. The bus rumbled beneath her. Music pumped through her headphones, drowning out the growl of the engine, the murmurs of fellow passengers, the hum of the air conditioning. She watched the world swing by, and every so often, caught sight of her own reflection and frowned.

They passed a sign that welcomed them to Purgatory, and before Nicole knew it, she was stepping off the bus and shaking hands with Nedley.

"Glad you could make it," he said.

"Happy to be here," she replied. They piled into his truck and he drove toward the heart of the town.

They tumbled through the usual pleasantries and Nicole gleaned only a few interesting pieces of information: Nedley had arrived late the night before, he'd been waiting until she got to town to make his rounds and see all his old neighbors and he was being cagey about where he—and by extension, she—was staying.

They plunged into the center of the little town, letting the road carry them to its heart. Nedley parked and hopped out of the truck. "This is it," he said. "Home sweet home."

Clouds hung low overhead, bobbing in an ocean of blue. Gaps between weather-worn buildings revealed dark conifers on the horizon. Beyond those, white-capped mountains thrust toward the sky. The air was as crisp as a ripe apple and almost as sweet.

"I love it," said Nicole, beaming like the sun breaking through clouds.

Nedley chuckled—a single, grunting chuckle—and led her into the building in front of them.

"We're not open," called someone from behind the bar.

Nedley took a seat at the bar anyway. "Howdy, Gus," he said.

A middle-aged woman with short salt-and-pepper hair turned toward them. She smiled at Nedley, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Nicole saw a little bit of her niece in the turn of her mouth.

"Well, if it isn't Randy Nedley. I haven't seen you in ages."

"It's been too long." Nedley smiled. "I'm only back for a visit, mind you."

"Oh, I know. Wouldn't dream of keeping you here." Gus leaned over the bar on her forearms, fixing Nicole with a suspicious eye. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Nicole Haught," said Nedley. He glanced at Nicole over his shoulder, found her still standing a few feet away. "Kid, this is Gus McCready. She doesn't bite, so sit down."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," said Nicole, obeying Nedley's command.

Gus accepted Nicole's proffered handshake with furrowed brows. "Nicole Haught? Why does that name sound familiar?"

"I worked with Waverly."

"That's right. You're that singer my sister likes so much. Ain't you supposed to be on tour?"

"It's a long story," said Nicole.

"Always is. Well, I'm not one to pry. You two want anything to drink while you're here?"

Gus poured them a couple of beers, and Nicole sipped hers while Nedley and Gus chatted. She listened, answering Gus's questions about Calgary and her music and stammering through any queries about Waverly. Gus got the hint eventually, leaving Waverly out of the conversation entirely.

Nicole sank into her own thoughts. She could just about picture Waverly here: waiting tables as her first paying job before fame had come a-knocking, propped up on a stool as a child before the bar opened and her aunt shooed her out.

Her phone chimed and she checked it: Dolls, asking her how she was. She grimaced, flicked the notification away like a bug, and stuffed the phone back in her pocket.

"Nicole?"

She blinked, realized that Gus and Nedley were staring at her. Gus clucked her tongue. "You kids and your phones. I was tryin' to ask you, how long are you stayin' in town?"

"As long as Nedley is, I guess." Nicole glanced at Nedley. "I'm crashing in his spare room."

"You've got a spare room for her to crash in?" Gus eyed Nedley. "How's that possible? I know for a fact you sold your old place to the Collins boy."

Nedley sipped his beer. "I'm up at the homestead."

For the first time in the conversation, Gus seemed surprised. "Oh, really? That's generous of her. It'll piss Michelle off something fierce, though."

"I think that was part of the appeal."

"Sorry," said Nicole. "What's the homestead?"

"It's the old Earp homestead," said Gus. "The girls grew up there and they've owned it between them since their daddy died. No one lives there now. My sister'd love to move in and get out from under my roof but the girls won't have it. I think Wynonna derives a particular sort of joy from denyin' her mama the run of the place."

Nedley nudged his glass toward Gus, who refilled it. "I heard you've got a list of repairs the place needs."

"Randy, you know you don't have to work all the time." Gus shook her head. "Drop by the house before you turn in; Curtis has got a notebook where he keeps track of everything wrong with the place. He'll be pleased to see you."

The conversation drifted again. Nicole finished her first beer and Nedley finished his second, and they went through the time-honored song and dance of who should pay and if the drinks were on the house.

As Nedley and Nicole got up to leave, Gus stopped them.

"If you're still in town Saturday night," said Gus to Nicole, "what would you say about stopping by and playin' for us a bit? You're a bit of a celebrity in this town, working with Waverly and all. I'm sure you could draw a crowd."

"I don't know," said Nicole; putting on a show in Waverly's hometown, even an impromptu one, somehow seemed like testing fate.

"Come on," said Gus, with a smile. "Tell you what, you play for us and your drinks'll be on the house as long as you're here."

Nicole wondered later if it was the ghost of Waverly in Gus's smile that made her say yes.

* * *

When Nedley drove through the gate that bore the name Earp, Nicole leaned forward in her seat. She took everything in: the low-slung old house, the barn off to one side, the detritus of long-abandoned machinery piled against the fence.

"This place has seen better days," she said, slamming the door of Nedley's truck behind her.

"If it has, it was before my time," said Nedley. They stood in front of the truck, hands in their pockets, letting the cooling engine warm their backs as they stared at the house.

"So this is where she grew up," said Nicole.

"Til their Daddy died and the McCready's took 'em in."

She hiked toward the house, dirt crunching beneath her feet. "I feel like I'm trespassing."

"You're here to help me, and I've got permission to be here." Nedley trudged along behind her. "I wouldn't've brought you here if I thought it was going to cause trouble."

The porch steps creaked as they climbed them; the porch sagged under their weight. "Why did you bring me here?"

"You needed a break." He sorted through his keys, letting them fall jingling against each other as he flipped through to the right one. It scraped in the lock; he threw his shoulder against the door to punch it open. "Sure, you fucked up. No, I don't know the details, don't worry. But whatever you did, I know you're still a good kid."

She slipped into the building in his wake, throwing an arm over her mouth and nose to ward against the dust kicked into the air with each step. "Why are you being so nice to me? Shouldn't you be mad at me? For hurting her?"

He lumbered from room to room, the collar of his shirt guarding against the heavy air. "Who says I'm not? But I figure it's better to keep you busy and away from her, at least until you both cool off a bit."

She followed him, her fingers skimming the spines of furniture hidden beneath drop cloths, an empty mantle, the wainscoting. They came away fuzzy with dust. She wiped it on her jeans. "She's not going to cool off."

"Maybe, maybe not." He chuckled. "But she definitely wouldn't if I'd left you moping around or twittering her or whatever it is you young people do."

They finished their inspection of the first floor; Nicole scanned their tracks in the dust, the cluster of footprints just inside the front door, the untouched stairs. "Nedley... did you actually sleep here last night?"

"You kidding? With all this dust? I slept in the truck."

She goggled at him. "I'm not sleeping in the truck."

Nedley chortled. "Then we better get cleaning."

* * *

Between the two of them, they did just that, and by the time they stopped by Gus's that evening, the place was clean enough to sleep in without worrying about choking to death on dust.

Nicole picked a slope-ceilinged room with a rickety bed as her place to crash. Most of the furniture was missing and the walls were bare. She wondered who had slept there before her; she imagined a tiny Waverly curled in the bed with a stack of books beside her.

The first full day at the homestead saw them setting to work. They toiled together, sweat on their brows, sparing words for each other only when necessary. They headed into town for lunch, Nedley fending off old friends and well-wishers as they went. As she and Nedley trucked through their meals, Nicole's phone vibrated with a text: Dolls again. She quashed the bile rising in her stomach with a few gulps of ice water. The text went unanswered.

Slowly, the house came together. Between trips to the hardware store and breaks to sleep and eat, they patched it up. If it wasn't quite pretty, it was at least solid again. No leaks, no mold, no broken stairs.

In the evenings, Nicole sat on the porch with her guitar. Sometimes Nedley joined her; sometimes he went into town and left her to her own devices. She played, bits at a time, pushing through new melodies. She scribbled down notes in the dim porch light, her sheet music weighed against the breeze with a leftover chunk of a two-by-four.

One night, before heading inside and to bed, she packed up her guitar, turned off the light, and stepped off the porch. Her eyes drifted to the sky. Stars dotted the blackness like far-flung sugar.

The wind caught the edges of her clothes, tugging them about her. It rustled through the grass. It carried the scent of smoke from a distant fire.

Nicole unclenched her fist, and the wind lapped at her sweat-lined palm, cooling it. In the dark, in the quiet, Nicole could almost imagine Waverly next to her, head tilted toward the stars, their fingers entwined.

She flicked the porch light back on, picked up her notebook, and dove into a new song.

* * *

When Nedley and Nicole stepped through the doors of Shorty's on Saturday night, a cheer went up through the crowd of patrons. Nicole stopped, a deer frozen by headlights.

"She showed, Gus!" yelled a grizzled old man at a table. Gus lifted a hand in greeting, calling them to the bar.

"On the house," she said, sliding a fresh-drawn beer to each of them as they settled in. "I was worried you weren't comin'."

"I had to clean myself up," said Nicole. "I got sawdust everywhere."

"No one here would've looked at you twice for a bit of sawdust," said Gus, smiling. "But I appreciate you wanting to look nice for us. When do you want to go on?"

"I guess before everyone gets so hammered they can't follow along anymore."

"Best get started soon, then." Gus stepped out from behind the bar. "Some of these fellers have been at it a while."

She and Curtis had set up a makeshift stage on one side of the space. Nicole hauled a stool over and settled in, strumming her guitar and tuning it. At those first notes, attention snapped to her; when she looked up again, she found dozens of bleary-eyed locals watching her.

"So, if you don't know me, I'm Nicole Haught." She waved and grinned at them. "Gus asked me to play a bit for you tonight, so if you don't like what you hear, blame her, okay?"

"Just start playing, Nicole!" shouted Gus, and the room rumbled with laughter. Nicole nodded, then slipped into her music.

Where she led, her audience followed. They were the easiest crowd she'd ever had. As her fingers danced through the first song, she wondered at that: had Gus talked her up? Was Nicole just that good? Or was it association with Waverly, the town hero, painting Nicole in the best light possible?

The first song led into the second, and she guessed she had time for one more before alcohol and fatigue got to them. She reached the end of the second song and they clapped as the last trembling notes of her voice faded. She studied their faces, then drew a sharp breath at the sight of a woman who looked like Waverly in the back of the crowd.

Nicole blinked, and the specter was gone. The woman was just a woman, hardly even a Waverly lookalike. Still, the memory lingered: Waverly, watching Nicole with fear and confusion and desire so thick it made it hard to breathe.

The last song Nicole played was their song.

Her eyes stayed closed as she played; her world shrunk to her fingers and the strings beneath them. She could just hear Waverly's voice singing along with her, light and warbling. As the last note died, and the crowd started to clap and whistle, she opened her eyes again. She found smiles waiting for her; she grinned back.

After thanking them and putting her guitar away, Nicole headed for the bar. Gus had a drink waiting for her. The stool beside the beer was occupied by a middle-aged woman with a tired face.

"You're really good," said the woman, as Nicole took her seat. "I've been a fan of yours for a while, but it's something else to see you live."

"Thanks." Nicole sipped her beer, smacking her lips at the cool, crisp taste. "Nice to meet you..."

"Michelle." The woman's mouth smiled; her eyes did not.

Nicole gulped, forcing a too-large mouthful of beer down her throat. "You're Waverly's mom."

"And you're her ex-girlfriend." Michelle sipped her whiskey, and the hard line of her mouth reminded Nicole of Wynonna. "I'm sure you've heard as many terrible things about me in the last few months as I've heard about you in the last few days."

"I deserve all of them."

"So do I," said Michelle. "I've got no quarrel with my kids there. I was a terrible mother. You, though... I'm trying to figure that out."

Nicole shifted on her stool to face Michelle squarely. "I lied to Waverly, ma'am. Whatever Waverly's told you, whatever Wynonna's told you, I deserve all of it."

Michelle winced at Nicole's declaration, tipping her glass and letting the ice cubes inside clink around. "I know Julian asked you to not to tell her," she said.

"He told you that?"

"He did, when I asked him. He never was one for secrets." Michelle drained her glass and set it on the bar. Gus whisked it away and replaced it, then disappeared again. "I don't know why you didn't tell her that part of it."

Nicole shrugged. "It didn't really matter why I did it. I lied to her. I hurt her. I wasn't going to make excuses for myself."

Michelle traced one finger around the edge of her glass. "Do you love my daughter?"

"I do."

Michelle smiled, and for the first time, Nicole saw Waverly in her. "I could tell her what Julian asked you to do. Not that it'd mean much to her, coming from me."

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"It's bad enough that he waited two months to reach out to her." Nicole frowned. "Telling her it was his idea to keep it a secret from her... it seems like rubbing salt in the wound. Let her think it was all my idea. I'm okay being the bad guy."

She turned away from Michelle and hunched over her beer. "Anyway, it's over between us. Just let it be."

Michelle sipped her drink. She watched Nicole. "You know, I came over here to tear into you for what you did to my baby girl."

"Go ahead." Beer washed over Nicole's tongue, bitter and crisp.

"I would, but I don't think there's anything I can say that's worse than the lashing you're giving yourself already." Michelle chuckled. "Listen, girl. I'm going to give you some advice."

Nicole turned to Michelle with a frown massing on her face like a storm on the horizon. "I'm listening."

"You've got to cut yourself some slack."

"Cut myself some... maybe that works for you," said Nicole, spitting acid like a viper, "but I can't do that."

With a sigh like a teakettle pulled from a flame, Michelle shook her head. "I said cut yourself some slack, not give yourself a free pass. And for the record, I never did. Not until Julian called me and told me he wanted to meet our daughter."

Nicole wondered how much force it took to shatter a beer bottle. She was fast approaching the limit, she was sure. "How did you live with yourself? You left her, you lied to her, you..." She snorted, cutting herself off.

"I know. That's what I'm telling you. I hurt my girls, and the guilt rotted me from the inside out. Whipping myself made me feel better, but when you're telling yourself you're just a bad person to the core, you don't change. I stayed away from them, because I was sure I'd hurt them if I was around. But what did that do for them? They kept on hurting and I never had to face what I'd done.

"I'm not saying to excuse yourself for what you did. I'm just saying... you have to learn to live with it. To own up to it, no matter how much it hurts you. Beating yourself up does you no good and it doesn't do my daughter any good, either. All right?"

Michelle laid a hand on Nicole's arm, and when Nicole met her eyes, Michelle smiled. "All right?" she asked again.

"Yeah," said Nicole. "All right."

"Good." Michelle picked up her whiskey, downed the last of it, and stood. "I don't know if she'll ever forgive you or me or my ex. I'm not sure any of us are worth that girl's forgiveness. But between you and me, you've got a better chance than most."

Having said her piece, Michelle clapped her glass on the lacquered bar and left Nicole behind. Nicole watched her go, then finished her beer, set a few bills on the bar for Gus, and went to find Nedley to ask him to bring her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a few characters who would probably like to have words with me about how I treated them in this fic, but I'm most afraid of Michelle. Shae's probably got the most cause to kick my ass but I dunno, I think I could take her.
> 
> I'm going to be at EH Con next weekend! Say hi if you see me! If you're not there, don't worry—there won't be any interruption in the posting schedule.
> 
> Next week: The Nicole Haught Apology Tour
> 
> I'm actually sort of sociable on twitter! [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	22. Chapter 22

At the end of Nedley's vacation and with the Earp homestead in far better shape than they'd found it, Nicole and Nedley parted ways with a handshake and a back-thumping hug.

Nicole headed back to Calgary, Michelle's words careening around her skull like billiard balls. Forgiving herself? Learning to live with it? All she had to do was remember the way Waverly's voice had broken like an overtight guitar string to know that was impossible.

Her apartment waited for her, dark and stifling. She stripped to a tank top and underwear as the window air conditioning unit sputtered to life with a musty belch.

Lying on the couch, one leg dangling off the side and the other kicked up on an armrest, she marveled at her life. At this time last year, she'd been spending her days with Shae. They hadn't been staying in each others' apartments; Shae didn't have AC, just a big box fan in the window that worked occasionally. Their bedrooms had been hot and thick and sleeping together left them both sticky and miserable.

Nicole would have given anything to have Waverly with her, suffocating her with body heat, stuck to her like cling wrap.

When the AC had worked a bit of its finicky magic, Nicole peeled herself off the couch and wandered into the bedroom. She pulled out her grandmother's ring and Shae flitted through her mind again. A day at the beach. A fight in the living room. A bitter text message.

That message still hid in her phone, a grenade of guilt and regret. She opened it.

 **Shae:** Were you cheating on me?

She hadn't. Nicole sucked on her teeth. She hadn't so much as kissed Waverly until after she and Shae had broken up.

But the ghost of a smile from Waverly had thrilled her. Waverly's touches rendered her speechless. She'd fallen in love with Waverly long before she'd been willing to admit it, eons before the fight that ended everything with Shae.

Maybe this was her punishment. Lying to herself had led to lying to Shae had led to lying to Waverly.

Her fingers tapped out a message before she could stop them.

 **Nicole:** Hey. I know you don't want to hear from me. But you deserve an apology. You didn't deserve the way I treated you. I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you about what I felt and what I wanted. Anyway. That's all. I hope you're doing well in LA.

As the text sent, her stomach flip-flopped. She tossed her phone to the end of her bed, watched it bounce on the still-neat sheets. Restless feet carried her to the kitchen: she drained a glass of water. They brought her to the bathroom: she drenched herself under a cold shower.

Wrapped in a towel, she stood outside her bedroom. Every nerve in her body screamed at her not to go in, as though the room had been booby-trapped, as though stepping in might end with her lying slain on her floor.

She swallowed, stepped over the threshold, and checked her phone.

 **Shae:** I don't really know what to say to this.  
**Shae:** Thanks, I guess.  
**Shae:** I'm sorry too, for what it's worth.  
**Shae:** I'm sorry for not listening to you and what you wanted. And for trying to manipulate you into doing what I wanted.  
**Shae:** I've heard the rumors about you and her. I'm not going to say I'm sorry about that, but I hope Dolls is taking care of you, at least.

Nicole winced. Dolls. Someone else who deserved an apology. Nicole wondered where he was, but the thought of checking the tour schedule raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

Her phone warbled with another message.

 **Shae:** I'm actually back in the city... Calgary, not LA. Taking care of some loose ends with the hospital. Do you want to get lunch tomorrow?

Nicole almost dropped the phone. She typed a reply before Shae could take the offer back.

 **Nicole:** I'd like that.

* * *

They met at a restaurant that had been one of their favorites. Nicole had met her ex there more than once for lunch, listening to her stories of odd patients and petty hospital drama. She arrived first, so she ordered a coffee while she waited, adding sugar and milk as though their measurements were critical.

Shae swept into the restaurant, as gorgeous as ever; she'd taken time with her hair and makeup. Nicole wondered for a moment if that was because of her or if the hospital business had called for it.

Nicole rose to her feet. Shae stepped close; they raised their arms as if to hug. Then Shae blinked and stepped back, leaving Nicole leaning in with her arms wide like the wings of an albatross.

"Shit, sorry," said Shae, and she arced one arm over Nicole's shoulder as Nicole dipped into the embrace. Then they snapped apart again.

Shae cleared her throat; they took their seats and snatched up menus to distract themselves.

"So," said Shae, laying her menu flat and running one finger down its laminated edge. "I didn't actually expect you to take me up on the offer of lunch."

"I figured." Nicole dipped a spoon into her coffee and gave the well-mixed liquid another stir for good measure. "I know this is awkward."

"Nicole, this isn't awkward, this is downright painful!" Shae laughed, and Nicole chuckled, and some of the tension seeped out of their shoulders.

"How's LA?" asked Nicole. "Everything you hoped?"

"Everything and more. I love it. How are you?"

"I've been better."

"Right." Their waiter arrived. Shae watched Nicole while she ordered, and as soon as the waiter left, she leaned in. "If I ask you about her... will you be honest with me?"

"I will." Nicole leaned forward, mirroring Shae. She folded her hands on the table. "I'll answer any question you ask me."

Shae's eyes fell to the silverware roll in front of her. "Did you cheat on me?"

"No." Nicole took a deep breath. "But I started having feelings for her while we were still together."

"Is that why you told me you wanted to move to L.A. with me?" The sneer on Shae's lips lashed Nicole like a whip. "Because of her?"

"No, not like that. I realized how I felt about her and it made me..." Closing her eyes, Nicole pressed her hand to her stomach, trying to quell the churning there. "I didn't want those feelings. I wanted you."

"When did that change?"

"When I came home. It wasn't right any more and I couldn't fix it. I tried and sometimes it seemed like maybe..." Nicole shook her head. "But then you found the ring and I just... I knew it was over."

"I wish you'd talked to me about it."

"I should have. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know how to say it in a way that wouldn't hurt you."

Shae unfolded her napkin and laid it in her lap, brushing out the wrinkles. "It hurt me anyway."

"Yeah. I know."

Their waiter appeared from behind Nicole, setting their lunch down in front of them.

"How long did you wait to start dating her after we broke up?"

Nicole pushed her salad around with her fork. "A week?"

"A week." Shae hadn't even touched her silverware. "A _week?_ What a great foundation for a relationship. I'm not surprised she left you already."

"Hey," said Nicole, dropping her fork on her plate with a tinny clank. "Be mad at me all you want, but leave Waverly out of it."

"Sorry," said Shae. She ran one finger down the handle of her knife. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

They worked through their salads, chewing in silence. As Shae's salad dwindled, she reached across the table and brushed her fingers against Nicole's. "I want... you should know... I was really nasty to you at the end, and I'm sorry. I felt you pulling away and I..."

Nicole snatched her hand away. "I know, but I—"

"Let me finish."

Nicole's jaw snapped shut. Shae took a deep breath. "I was the one who asked for the break. I was the one trying to get you to be someone you're not. I think we both said things and did things we aren't proud of, but I feel like you do this... this thing where you put all of the blame on yourself and it isn't true. I mean, I am still angry with you, sometimes. But you're allowed to be angry too, you know."

Nicole stabbed a piece of arugula and tried to stab a cherry tomato. It rolled away from her. "You sound like Dolls."

Shae laughed. "Thank you."

"I wasn't trying to compliment you."

"I know, but it's a compliment all the same. I'm... I'm glad you have someone like him in your corner."

A tremor started in Nicole's gut and rattled its way into her throat. She swallowed. "Sure."

Shae raised one eyebrow. "Nicole. Please tell me you still have Dolls in your corner."

Nicole blew out a puff of air. "Don't worry about me and Dolls. Do you have any more questions?"

Massaging her temple, Shae sighed. "God, you can be so frustrating sometimes. I am so glad I broke up with you."

She shook her head, but a grin peeked through her veneer of annoyance. Nicole's mouth quirked upward in response. "Wait, didn't I break up with you?"

Shae snorted and nudged Nicole's shin under the table. "Don't push your luck, Haught."

* * *

The next stop on the Nicole Haught Apology Tour was the voicemail of Xavier Dolls.

She'd wanted to speak to him for real, to tell him about Shae, about Mama Earp, about the half of her that wanted to chase down Waverly and profess her love like a madwoman and the half that thought Waverly deserved to be left well enough alone.

The call went straight to voicemail.

So Nicole said those things to a future Dolls. Maybe a Dolls waiting backstage for Waverly's next show to begin. Maybe a Dolls tidying up his tour bus after a long day planning Waverly's global musical takeover. She hoped he wouldn't be too busy for her.

She had put on Waverly's newest album, the one with their song, in hopes of triggering a good, cleansing cry and had set to the task of organizing her climbing gear when a knock sounded at the door. Laying her backpack down on her table, she padded to the door and spied through the peephole.

As soon as she saw the person on her doorstep, she threw the door open.

"What are you doing here?" she shouted, hurling herself at Dolls.

He caught her, gripped her almost hard enough to crack her ribs, and let her go. "Checking on you. You haven't replied to a single one of my texts."

Heat saturated her cheeks. "I was in Purgatory," she said.

Dolls blinked. "That's either an odd way of describing your emotional state or you did something really stupid, like going to your ex's hometown."

"It wasn't like that."

He sighed. "You going to invite me in and tell me about it?"

She stood in the doorway, one arm braced against the jamb. He waited. To anyone else, he would have seemed his usual stern, steady self.

Nicole saw the change in him. Worry drew his eyebrows in tighter. It pulled the curve of his mouth a shade deeper.

"Actually," she said, and for a moment his anxiety was so sharp her gut seized as if she'd been stabbed. "Do you want to go on a hike with me?"

* * *

They drove into the foothills of the mountains together, unspeaking, music filling the space between them. Only when they reached the trailhead and left all signs of civilization behind them did Dolls breach the wall of silence.

"Tell me what the hell you were thinking."

She bristled at his demand, but focused on planting one foot in front of the other as the grade grew steeper. "It really wasn't like that. Nedley was going there for a job. He invited me. I didn't want to be alone."

"Why didn't you answer my texts?"

"You work for her now. I know, I said I was fine with that. And I am, I really am happy for you." She studied the terrain and chose her next footfall. "You just... reminded me of her. It was a lot. But I should have let you know I was all right. I'm sorry."

His labored breath sounded from below. "Thanks. I'm not mad at you, you know. I was worried, but I'm not mad."

They kept climbing, winding their way up the mountain. As they crossed the timberline and traipsed between scrubby trees and prickly bushes, Nicole spoke again.

"I saw Shae," she said.

His steps silenced behind her. She stopped and turned to look at him.

"Of everything that's happened in the last few months, that might just be the most surprising," he said. He found his water bottle, took careful gulps. "What happened?"

"I texted her an apology. She was in town, wanted to get lunch." Nicole lifted the hem of her shirt to blot sweat from her forehead. "It was nice. A little awkward, but nice."

After a little interrogation about her lunch with Shae, Dolls stowed his bottle and they continued on their way.

"So what next?" he asked, punctuating each word with a heavy breath. They scrambled up a granite slab, knees bent, muscles burning. "The tour was supposed to be until September. Do you need gigs?"

She crested the top of the slab and shouted down to him. The wind had picked up, whistling in her ear, stripping the sweat from her skin. "With all those checks from the label, I'm set for a little while. I want to focus on writing."

He caught up to her.

"I did a little show in Purgatory," she said when he reached her, only just audible over the wind.

"So I heard," he mumbled, as they rifled through their backpacks looking for their windbreakers.

Nicole paused, clutching the crinkling fabric of her jacket in her fingers. She licked her lips, tasting salt. "You... you did?"

"Michelle told Waverly about it."

Damn Michelle Gibson and her newfound compulsion to tell the truth. Nicole hiked her backpack up on her shoulders, tightened the straps, and started toward the cairn marking their path. "What did Waverly say?"

"I'm not going to betray her confidence."

"Oh, fine, be noble." She zig-zagged between cairns, hopping up ledges, stretching over puddles.

The summit rose ahead of them, stark against the blue sky. Other hikers grinned and cheered for them as they approached. Nicole offered them smiles that would have made Dolls proud.

Then they were there, and there was nothing ahead of them but the gently curving summit and the mountain falling away on the other side.

Nicole planted her hands on her hips and filled her lungs. The air was cold and sharp, light with the scent of spruce.

Electricity seemed to build in her lungs and spread throughout her body, crackling over her skin, waiting to be discharged.

"Dolls?" she asked. He'd tilted his face toward the sun, eyes closed, letting it warm him. "You didn't listen to the voicemail I left you, did you?"

"I didn't," he said. "What did you say?"

"That I'm sorry for bailing on you. That I went to Purgatory and met Michelle." She gulped. "That I miss Waverly. I miss her so much."

"I know," he said, and his hand on her shoulder was steady. "You love her."

"I never told her," she said. The wind snapped at her jacket, dragged her hair pell-mell around her face. "I wish I had. I wish I could."

She held her hair back and surveyed the land around them. Conifers blanketed the foothills, the other peaks around them. Higher, snow-capped peaks stretched toward the sun. The earth wrinkled and tucked like a discarded quilt.

Dolls waited, watching Nicole as much as he took in the vistas. She looked back at him, starting when she caught his eye.

"What is it?" she asked.

"She met Julian," he said.

"She did?"

He crossed his arms and nodded. "After you left. Before she moved on to the next stop. She took a detour. Went to the city, spent an afternoon with him."

"How did it go?"

"She wouldn't talk about it," he said. "She was like a ghost when she got back. Wynonna said she'd never seen her so quiet."

"So she was in the city and I was in Purgatory." Nicole shook her head. Then she stopped, turned to look at Dolls, and frowned. "When did Michelle tell Waverly about my show? Did she call her?"

"I don't know," he said. "I assume so."

Her mind slipped back to her show in Purgatory, to the woman in the crowd who had looked like Waverly.

"Did Waverly visit Michelle, too?" asked Nicole. "Did she go to Purgatory?"

"I don't know," he said again, but she'd already moved on, her mind racing like a runaway train. Suddenly, she was sure it had been Waverly, that Waverly had seen her play.

And if it had been Waverly... if the look on Waverly's face had been what Nicole thought...

"Dolls," said Nicole, fighting to speak though her tongue seemed as heavy as lead. "I have an idea."

"All right," he said.

"I'll need your help." She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket.

"Okay."

"You could get in trouble."

"Haught," he said. "Whatever it is, I've got your back. I've always got your back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter's going up a bit early this week because I'm at EH Con and I'll forget later! I'm not used to doing final edits on a phone so if you see any errors, whisper them in the comments.
> 
> Also can you believe this is almost over? I'm in denial.
> 
> Next week: one more time.
> 
> come say hi on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	23. Chapter 23

Nicole sat on the edge of her hotel bed, headphones on, knee jumping. Sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtain, just beginning to take on the orange hue of sunset.

Her phone buzzed. Time to go.

She climbed into her rental car. The sharp odor of disinfectant suffused the cabin, and she drove down the highway with the windows down. She kept her radio tuned to the Top 40 station, playing Russian roulette with Waverly's singles loaded in the chamber.

The venue for Waverly's next show rose ahead of her: another football stadium, towering over parking lots and suburban sprawl. She headed into the employee lot, flashing the ID Dolls had given her, hoping her nervous smile wouldn't tip off the guard.

Before Nicole hopped out of the truck, she donned a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses. Maybe it was a silly disguise—her hair was still a dead giveaway—but she couldn't afford to attract the eye of certain people.

Dolls couldn't meet her. He'd given her an ID and basic directions. She replayed them in her mind as she strode into the coliseum.

She carried her garment bag, her suit safe inside. No one questioned her. With her ID, with the bag, she looked like just another assistant fetching something for the star.

The bathroom was right where Dolls said it would be. She ducked inside, claimed a stall, and changed as best she could in the tiny space, her elbows knocking the walls as she slipped into her suit.

Nicole fastened her tie in the mirror. She neatened her hair. Tucking her regular clothes into the garment bag, she rolled the whole thing up and carried it under her arm.

As she stepped out of the bathroom, someone called her name. She froze. It wasn't Waverly; that would have been awkward, but not the end of the world. It wasn't Wynonna; that would have been disastrous.

It was Julian, wearing an ID badge of his own and an expression of disbelief.

"It is you," he said, when she turned. "Does Waverly know you're here?"

"No," she said. She glanced at her phone. Dolls hadn't texted her, but her timing was critical. If Julian delayed her...

Julian still stared at her like he couldn't fathom the sight of her. "I've been debating trying to find you," he said. "I want to apologize. And to thank you."

"Thank me?" She'd been on the verge of making a flimsy excuse and sprinting away, but that stopped her in her tracks. "An apology, yeah, I'd say that's overdue. But why thank me?"

"For not telling her I asked you to keep quiet. Even after I threw you under the bus. I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have said anything."

Nicole frowned at him. "Don't thank me for lying to her," she said. "I shouldn't have kept it from her."

"No," he said. "I guess not. She understood why I asked you to do it, but she wasn't happy about it."

"You told her?" Nicole's legs turned to jello; she threw out her arm, catching herself on the wall before she could topple over. "She knows?"

"That's why I wanted to talk to you," he said. "You care about my kid, and she cares about you. And yeah, you messed up, but so did I. She's giving me a chance and she barely knows me."

"You're her dad," said Nicole, shaking her head.

Julian stepped toward her, laying his hand on her shoulder. "You're the love of her life. And she's yours."

Nicole clawed at her shirt, as though her fingers could plunge between her ribs and quell her hammering heart. "How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I had one of those and I lost her. I don't want to see that happen to my daughter, or to you." Pulling his hand away, he checked his wristwatch and shook his head. "All I'm trying to say is, whatever grand gesture you're here to make... you better get going."

* * *

All eyes turned to the woman in the suit striding toward the stage: Nicole Haught, inexplicably back from her tabloid-fodder banishment. She avoided meeting those eyes, focused only on putting one foot in front of the other. As she drew closer to the stage, the sound of Waverly's show built like snowdrifts in a blizzard. Waverly's voice, muddled and amplified, filled the hallways to bursting.

Nicole caught sight of Dolls pacing backstage and hurried over to him.

"You made it," he said, sighing with relief. "We have your guitar ready to go. Rosita will explain what you need to do."

"Rosita's helping?"

"I asked her to. I enlisted Jeremy, too. He's been running interference for you somewhere around here."

Leading her around the scaffolding, he deposited her in front of Rosita. "Here," said Rosita, handing Nicole her guitar. "It's all ready to go. And here's your mic. You'll have to carry it on stage with you. There's a mark onstage for Waverly; use that to position yourself."

Nicole wrapped her fingers around the microphone stand, giving it an experimental heft. The last strains of Waverly's song died away, and Waverly's quick words and laugher replaced it. Waverly's backup dancers pranced off the stage past them, hurrying toward costuming to change for the next stage of the show.

"You've got until the end of this song," said Dolls, when the last dancer had passed. As he spoke, the first few notes of the next song played. Nicole's insides coiled tight; her lungs burned.

"She's still playing our song?"

Dolls crossed his arms. "She took it out of the set for a little bit. Put it back in as soon as she got back from Purgatory."

"Okay," said Nicole, swinging her arms back and forth, rolling her neck from side to side. "Okay, I can do this."

"Do what, exactly?"

Everyone turned; from around a corner came Wynonna Earp, storming toward them like a bull.

"Wynonna," said Dolls, stepping between her and Nicole, "calm down."

"You fucking calm down!" She charged at Nicole; Dolls raised his arm to block her. She bounced off of it, glaring at him. "Dolls, you fucking asshole, is this what you've been so squirrelly about?"

"Wynonna," said Nicole. "I have to do this."

"No, you have to get the hell out of here and leave my baby sister alone."

"I can't do that. This is it, all right? After this, if she still doesn't want to see me anymore, I'm gone. For good."

"What, did you write a song for her or something? Oh, god, you did. Of all the..." Wynonna screwed her eyes shut, shaking her head. "Right. Do you remember when I told you I'd kick your teeth in if you made Waverly cry? If you recall, I never properly kicked your ass. So here's the deal. I'll let you go out there, then you report back here for one bonafide Earp ass-kicking. Okay?"

"Thanks," said Nicole. "You're a really great big sister, did you know that?"

Wynonna flipped Nicole off.

"This is touching," said Dolls. He braced his hand on Nicole's back, between her shoulder blades. "But you've got to go."

Waverly had reached the final verse of the song. Nicole snatched up the mic and let him shove her into the wings. She peered out onto the stage, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she caught sight of Waverly. Waverly stood downstage, a solitary figure in front of her microphone. Light showered her from above; it broke against her, shattering into a million tiny gems.

Beyond Waverly, the crowd roiled, hanging onto her dying song like a lifeline. Cellphone lights flashed and flickered. Waverly's voice drifted away, and the crowd swelled with cacophonous applause.

The lights went out, submerging the arena in darkness.

"Good luck," said Dolls. Nicole's feet moved. One in front of the other. She took her position downstage, alone; Waverly had sprinted to the other wing, where a fleet of assistants waited to strip her of one identity, to transform her from one version of WAVES to another.

Nicole stood in front of her microphone, settling her guitar in her hands. She took a breath. A clattering of feet announced Waverly's return. The lights came back up.

A murmur rippled through the crowd like falling dominoes. Waverly's music hadn't started to play; without that cue, she'd remained silent. At the crowd's reaction, she turned, and finally spotted Nicole.

The first chord from Nicole's guitar drew a wild cheer from the audience. Nicole leaned into her mic. "Hey, everybody. I hope you're having a great time tonight."

Waverly's jaw dropped. The crowd shrieked again.

"Just so you all know, I'm not supposed to be here. WAVES is just as surprised as you are."

Commotion in the wings drew Nicole's attention; on one side, Dolls and Wynonna argued with a pair of burly security guards. On the other, the guards pushed past Jeremy with no resistance.

Waverly raised her hand toward them. She shook her head. They stopped, glanced between each other, then retreated to the wing again. They watched Nicole, arms crossed.

When the guards barreled onto the stage, the crowd had bubbled with a mixture of laughter, gasps, and cheers. As Waverly stopped them, turned to Nicole, and nodded, a hush fell over them, the quietest Nicole had ever heard.

She surrendered herself to the silence.

"I wrote this song for someone I hurt," she said. Her eyes drifted to Waverly: still standing at her mic, one hand on the stand, watching Nicole with an unreadable expression. Nicole swallowed. "This is 'Under Your Sky.'"

Nicole brought the song into the world like a newborn, loud and messy and perfect. It had been conceived at the homestead, beneath a dusting of stars and the faint ribbon of the Milky Way. _Waverly grew up under this sky,_ she'd thought then. _I'd give anything to share this with her._

She'd taken that thought and put it in words, in rhythm, in song as best she could.

As Nicole played, Waverly's grip on the mic stand tightened. She leaned on it as though she would topple over without it. Nicole offered Waverly a lopsided smile, and Waverly gasped. The cameras caught it, played it on the giant screens above their heads, and it seemed every person in the audience gasped with her.

Waverly took a step toward Nicole. Another. Nicole slipped into the tail end of the song, and Waverly stood in front of her, looking up at her, spotlights glimmering in her eyes.

When the song finished, before Nicole could draw a breath, Waverly flew into the space between them. She pushed the guitar aside and threw her arms around Nicole's neck. Nicole bent over her, her arm tight around Waverly's back, fingers pressing into skin and costume.

"I missed you," whispered Waverly, her lips brushing Nicole's ear, her words barely audible over the eruption of the audience around them.

"I missed you, too," said Nicole. Her own lips hovered over Waverly's neck, a charge building between them. She pulled away, and the charge broke with an arcing snap of electricity.

"If you want to talk, find Dolls after," she said. "I'll be waiting."

Then Nicole drew a shuddering breath, waved to the crowd, and headed into the waiting arms of the security guards.

* * *

After the show and after most of the fans had left, Nicole made her way to the top deck of the stadium. She chose a seat in the middle, texted Dolls her location, and settled in. A pleasant breeze tickled her skin. It was the kind of night that called for a cooler, a camp chair, a hand wrapped around a sweating beer bottle.

She kicked her feet up on the seat in front of her. She estimated she had a little while to go before Waverly had been stripped of costume and makeup, before Wynonna let her little sister escape into the arms of the world's worst redhead.

Speaking of Wynonna: Nicole had reported for her ass-kicking, as ordered, but Wynonna had just scowled and told Nicole she'd taken all the fun out of it.

Nicole silenced her phone and shoved it into the inside pocket of her jacket; she was sure she was being tagged in post after post by fans and reporters and she wanted none of it. Having the phone hidden away made passing the time harder. She stared at the sky and fought her drooping eyelids.

Just as she was beginning to drift off to sleep, a throat cleared below her.

"Nicole?" said Waverly, and Nicole scrambled upright.

"You came," she said, popping out of her seat.

Waverly stood at the bottom of the concrete steps in her civilian clothes, the stadium floodlights carving her profile in marble. A loose cardigan draped over her shoulders, pulled close against the breeze. She met Nicole's smile with a sigh and a raised eyebrow. "You wanted to talk?"

Nicole gulped; her smile disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. "Yeah, do you want to sit?"

Climbing the steps, Waverly slid into the row in front of Nicole, choosing a spot two seats down. She crossed her legs at the knees and stared down at the arena. They sat a moment in silence; Nicole gripped the armrests of her seat and Waverly picked at the hem of her shorts.

"I'm sorry," said Nicole, shattering the silence. "I'm so sorry."

Waverly's fidgeting fingers stilled; she turned toward Nicole, drenched in eerie stadium light.

Nicole's apology spilled from her lips like springwater. "I hurt you. I betrayed your trust in so many ways. I should never have gone to see Julian after you trusted me enough to tell me about him. I should never have hid the fact that I saw him from you. I should have been honest with you."

She pressed her lips together; her nostrils flared. "I understand if you can't forgive me or if you don't want to see me again after this. I just... you should know how much I regret what I did. How sorry I am."

Her hands curled into fists. She squeezed her eyes together, unwilling to look at Waverly, to try to decipher any meaning from the look on Waverly's face.

"I met Julian," said Waverly. The non-sequitur popped Nicole's eyes open; she found Waverly watching her, as placid as a pond on a windless day. "After you left. I called him up and headed out to the city to meet him. He's... he's nice."

"That's great," said Nicole. "I'm happy for you."

"Yeah." Waverly nodded, as if to reassure herself. "It's a little weird. But I think it's going to be okay. He told me he asked you to keep your meeting a secret from me."

Nicole took a breath, shaking like a tree in a thunderstorm.

Waverly continued. "I think I understand why you didn't tell me. I still don't think it was right, but... I get it. What I still don't understand is why you didn't tell me after I found out."

"I almost did," said Nicole. She leaned back, staring at the seats across the stadium, tracing the steel beams responsible for supporting all this concrete, all those people. "I guess I had two reasons. One, I didn't want to make excuses for my behavior. And two..."

She sighed. "Two, when he asked me that, he was terrified. I don't think he's a bad person, but it was a bad call, from both of us. I didn't want to color your first impression of him. You deserved a chance to meet him with a clean slate."

Waverly shifted to face Nicole, leaning sideways against the hard plastic back of her seat. "And yet," she said, "I found out anyway."

"You know, Shae said almost the same thing to me the other day."

"You're talking to Shae again?"

"Not really. It was one lunch. To settle things. Apologize." Nicole shrugged. "Get closure."

"That sounds like it was awkward."

"It was so awkward."

A breathy chuckle from Waverly loosened something inside Nicole; she leaned forward, bracing her forearms on the seat in front of her.

Waverly played with the charm on her necklace, tugging the chain taut. "I forgive you," she said. "I forgave you a while ago, actually. Once I got done venting to Wynonna and trying to hit up Rosita for a booty call."

Nicole's eyes went wide and Waverly shook her head, gripping the back edge of an empty seat between them. "I didn't," she said. "Okay? I... I wanted you. I only wanted you and I was so mad at you for messing up and taking yourself away from me. I still want you, but I'm scared out of my mind because I don't know if I can trust you."

Though Waverly's hand was in reach, though it would be so easy to stretch her fingers and tangle them with Waverly's, Nicole held herself back. "You never asked me why I went to see him," she said.

"I didn't care," said Waverly. "By the time I thought about it, I figured it was some stupid, noble, protective thing. You and Wynonna are an awful lot alike that way."

"It wasn't noble," said Nicole, shaking her head. "It was selfish. I was... scared."

"Of what?"

"Of things ending up like they did with Shae. One-sided, always about what she wanted or needed. I went to Julian to try to fix everything for you. And I was mad at him for what I thought he did to you, but I also... I also thought if things were better with him, then maybe we could be together on my terms."

Nicole met Waverly's eyes, her jaw tight, her lip trembling. "Do you still forgive me?"

Waverly threaded her fingers through her hair, her eyes flickering over Nicole's face. "Do you still feel that way?"

"No. Not about any of it. Everything with Shae... it was never as one-sided as I made it out to be in my head. And if I was afraid of the same thing happening with you, I should have talked to you about it. I should have been honest."

She sat up straighter, fingers curling around the top of the seat in front of her, so tight they glowed white in the floodlit arena. "Can I show you something?"

"Anything."

"Okay." Nicole pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Dolls. One by one, the lights in the stadium shut down, plunging them into darkness.

Waverly yelped.

"It's all right," said Nicole. She shifted over by one seat, sitting kitty corner from Waverly. Her hand rested on the seat in front of her, her fingers brushing Waverly's. "Look up."

They tipped their faces back in unison, peering at the sky.

"It's pretty," said Waverly, slowly, a question lingering in the pause that followed.

"It is," said Nicole, "but it's nothing compared to the sky in Purgatory or from the top of a mountain. It's barely better than the sky in L.A. And it's the only sky I want to see right now, because I'm looking at it with you."

She let her eyes fall to Waverly's; her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark, could trace the ghostly lines of Waverly's lips and eyes and jaw. "If you could never go to Calgary again, or Purgatory, that would be okay. If you want this... if you want me... I'll make it work."

Her hand seemed to lift of its own accord, drawn toward Waverly. Her fingers brushed Waverly's jaw, her cheek, drew an errant strand of hair back from Waverly's face and tucked it away. Waverly caught her hand and leaned into the touch, holding her in place.

A smile bubbled to the surface of Nicole's lips. "I'm in love with you, Waverly Earp. Always will be. I'll follow you wherever you go, if you'll have me."

Waverly, still cradling Nicole's hand, pulled it down to her lips and kissed Nicole's palm. Then she drew it into her lap, clutching it in both of her hands. Nicole shifted, the seats burrowing into her arm, her elbow bent a way it hated, trying to maintain the touch as long as possible.

"Before I answer," said Waverly, her fingers tracing every feature of the hand she'd captured, "you should know... I went to Purgatory, too. I... I saw your show."

"I thought I saw you," said Nicole. "I thought I was imagining it."

"That was me. You went up there and sang our song like... like..." Waverly huffed. "I went there to see my mama but I also... um, you know that house you and Nedley worked on? The old Earp homestead? I asked him to do that. I wanted to fix up the house and... oh, I know it's too early, but I sort of imagined us there. Living there. Together. And it felt... right. It just felt right."

"You wanted to fix up a house for me?" asked Nicole. She leaned back in her seat, her hand slipping out of Waverly's.

Waverly nodded. "Yeah. Because I... I love you, too. I love you so much. I spent so long running from my family and my home and everything that scared me. But you... you made me brave. I'd face all my demons for you."

Then she lifted herself from her seat, leaned over the back of it, and pulled Nicole into a kiss. Nicole rose to meet her. One row back, she towered over Waverly; she braced herself on the seat between them, bent nearly double.

They broke apart, lungs burning. Waverly's hands tangled in the hair at the back of Nicole's neck. Nicole leaned in again, but Waverly stopped her, palms flat against her collarbone.

Nicole reeled back. "I'm sorry, I—"

Waverly shook her head. Her fingers burrowed in the front of Nicole's shirt and tugged. "Shh. You're too tall. Come down here, sit next to me, and for the love of god, don't stop kissing me."

Nicole grinned. Then she climbed over the seats, happy to oblige.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THAT'S A WRAP!
> 
> ...or it would be, except you might have noticed that the chapter count has jumped to 24! Surprise, I wrote an epilogue! I'm not usually an epilogue person, but I wanted to do something for you guys for sticking with me through this whole thing. You survived ten fucking chapters of ShaeHaught, for crying out loud. You are saints.
> 
> If you don't like epilogues, you can peace out now. The story I wanted to tell is over. But if you don't mind them or you just want a little more time with these characters... tune in one more time for a lighthearted little gift from me to you.
> 
> I'm on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)


	24. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning that this is equal parts cute and very, very silly.

**WHAT IS A WAYHAUGHT AND WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH THE GRAMMY AWARDS?**  
_Maeve Perley_

You've been on the internet. You've got basic reading comprehension skills. So you've definitely seen your friends and enemies freaking out about something called a "WayHaught" at the Grammy Awards tonight.

[wavesexcitedsmile.gif]

What is a WayHaught, you ask? Some new dance move? The latest nihilistic Gen Z craze?

No, my friend. WayHaught is a way of life, and also a very cute couple.

[wayhaughtbeachkiss.gif]

Specifically, WayHaught refers to the relationship between Waverly "WAVES" Earp and her girlfriend, singer-songwriter Nicole "Extremely Hot" Haught. _Way_ verly Earp and Nicole _Haught_ , get it?

Earp and Haught began dating a little over two years ago, according to this intrepid reporter, just after the pair collaborated on Earp's single, _Easy_. Apparently, all that time alone together talking about their feelings paid off. I'll admit, that tactic has never worked out well for me, but given the results these two got, I'll keep trying.

Unlike some celebrity couples, WayHaught have never been afraid of a little PDA. Like this:

[wayhaughtairportkiss.gif]

Or this:

[nicolepuppyeyes.gif]

Or this gobsmackingly cute piece of art:

[handkissdfkhsdflhj.gif]

So why all this excitement about the Grammy Awards, specifically? Other than the fact that they'll be there, gorgeous as ever, like they were last year and the year before that?

Simple. Waverly Earp—no longer recording under the WAVES identity since she founded her independent label two years ago—has been nominated for Song of the Year for _Wherever You Are_.

Who's presenting the winner of that category?

Nicole Haught, of course! So batten down the hatches, my fellow sapphics and WayHaught fans: we're in for a show tonight.

[waverlybounce2.gif]

Comments (542):  
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gooseclaws (4:14AM): none of the gifs are loading???? please god why

* * *

In Purgatory, four people arrived at the Earp homestead. Michelle Gibson greeted them at the door as they arrived. She hugged her sister, her brother-in-law, and Randy Nedley. When Julian arrived, she hugged him, too.

If his hands lingered on the small of her back, if hers lingered on his shoulders... well, what was the harm? No one could see them, and anyway, they shared a daughter. A little affection wouldn't kill them.

Julian shook hands with Curtis and Nedley, then settled on the couch next to Gus. He folded his hands in front of him, knees turned in to avoid taking up space, and waited. The TV gurgled with the chatter of celebrities and interviewers, the roar of crowds as new celebs rolled up to the event in their limousines, the patter of camera lenses.

They stared at it, unspeaking.

"So, Gus." Julian broke the silence, hands bobbing. "How have you been?"

"Oh, fine. Just fine." She sipped her drink. "You?"

"Fine, fine." He nodded and glanced around the room.

Nedley sat in an armchair, already dozing. Curtis sat on Gus's other side, shooting Julian an apologetic look over her shoulder. Michelle bustled around in the kitchen behind them.

Julian stood, clearing his throat. "You know what, I think I'll go help Michelle. "

"She's just making popcorn! I think she has it handled!" shouted Gus; Curtis laid a hand on her knee and shook his head. She laced her fingers with his. "What? I'm just giving him a hard time."

He chuckled, leaned in, and kissed her cheek.

* * *

_Interview transcript, Stephanie Jones on red carpet with Waverly Earp, Grammy Awards 2021, 4:46PM PT_

Stephanie Jones: Oh, shit, there she—Carl, Carl, get this—Waves! Waverly Earp! Stephanie Jones with [unintelligible]  
Waverly Earp: Hi!  
SJ: You look beautiful.  
WE: Thank you, so do you!  
SJ: Oh, thank you so much! Are you excited about being nominated tonight?  
WE: Yeah, of course! It's an honor to have a song nominated, especially a song like _Wherever You Are_ that is just so special to me.  
SJ: How crazy is it that your girlfriend is the one presenting that award?  
WE: It's exciting, it's really exciting. It's so funny how the world works sometimes, and you know, I'm so proud of her.  
SJ: You don't—sorry, excuse—excuse me—watch where you're—I'm so sorry, Waverly.  
WE: It's fine.  
SJ: So, with Nicole giving out the award and you nominated, you don't think it's a ratings ploy?  
WE: Well... you know, even if it was, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. But she found out about the presenting role way before I found out I was nominated. So, um, no, I don't think so. Okay, bye now!  
SJ: Wait, don't—[unintelligible]  
WE: Enjoy your evening.  
SJ: Waves! Mother—fuck—[unintelligible]—Carl, did you get that?

* * *

Dolls leaned back in his seat in Nicole's dressing room, scrolling through his phone. Nicole sat facing a mirror, a team of stylists buzzing around her.

"Twitter loves Waverly's dress," he said.

She gave her reflection a toothy grin. "They should. She looked amazing."

"Reactions are split on your outfit."

Nicole glanced down at herself: she'd elected to wear a stylized sort of suit, a fashion designer's play on the line between masculine and feminine. Her makeup artist tapped her chin with the end of a brush; Nicole lifted her head.

"Straight dudes don't like it?"

He smirked. "Not one bit. Lots of women are... melting, I think."

They settled back into comfortable silence; she let herself be primped and polished and he kept browsing.

"They're destroying Doc Holliday and his hat."

She bit back a laugh. "Are you sure, or is that just what you wish would happen?"

"I'm just reporting other people's objective opinions. The hat is terrible, Haught."

"Whatever you say, Dolls. Do you need to go to your seat soon?"

He checked the time. "Yeah, I should get going. Do you need anything else?"

"No, I think they've got me pretty well in hand." Nicole offered a bright smile to her makeup artist; the woman flushed from her collarbones to her ears and gave a flustered smile in return.

"Careful who you flash those dimples at," he said, and the makeup artist got even redder. "All right. Break a leg."

He made his way out of the dressing room and into the arena, looking for his seat. As he picked his way up the aisle between sections, dodging famous people and their entourages, he collided with someone. They reached out to steady each other; he looked down to find Wynonna standing in front of him, hands on his arms.

"Oh, hey," she said, taking a step back. One hand settled on her stomach, gliding over her baby bump. "Fancy seeing you here."

"What are the odds?"

She snorted, then glanced behind her; Waverly and Doc Holliday sat next to each other, heads dipped together in conversation. "Okay, I'd love to stay and chat but I've got to go pee like Seabiscuit, so..."

He stepped out of her way; she brushed past him without another word, and he watched her go.

As Dolls crept toward his seat, Waverly and Doc looked up. Waverly beamed; Doc nodded, touching the brim of his hat in greeting. "Dolls," he said.

"Doc."

As he made to shuffle past them, Waverly snatched his hand.

"How is she?"

He gave her a gentle smile, shaking the nest of their joined hands. "She's fine. She's turning her makeup artist to mush, but she's fine."

"She is, is she?" asked Waverly, forcing a scowl onto her features.

"She's excited," he said. He freed his hand and inched closer to his seat. "You know how it goes when she smiles."

"Yeah," said Waverly, her eyes going glassy for a moment. "I do."

Doc smiled indulgently at her and Dolls shook his head. He finally reached his seat, leaving one empty one between himself and Doc. Just as he was getting settled, the lights began to dim.

Wynonna returned, hissing apologies to everyone in their row as she pushed past them. She dropped into the seat beside Doc with a groan.

"Wynonna, are you quite all right?" asked Doc.

"Fine," she said. "This kid of yours just can't sit still."

"I believe she gets that from you," he said.

She flipped him off, earning her a whispered scolding from Waverly down the aisle.

Dolls stretched his arm over the back of her seat, his thumb brushing over her shoulder. "Seriously," he said, leaning toward her, "are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Stop worrying."

"Easier said than done, Earp."

She squeezed his knee, then pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I know."

* * *

Champ Hardy threw his hand in the air, pointing toward the ceiling; sweat dripped down his forehead and off his chin. The lights went out and applause filled the arena. He grinned and loped off the stage with his backup dancers.

The broadcast switched to a wide shot of the arena: people clapping, cheering, waving their phones. Then to a shot of Waverly Earp, a perfectly normal, perfectly natural smile on her face.

Wynonna Earp, just down the aisle from Waverly, noticed the camera pointed at them and mimed vomiting.

Waverly leaned across Doc Holliday to swat her sister and the shot swiftly changed to another wide shot.

The camera shifted to the stage again as the host took her place in front of the crowd. With a little preamble, she announced the presenter for song of the year.

Nicole Haught appeared from backstage, making her way to the microphone. The crowd clapped and cheered. She smiled at them and at the host, accepting a hug and a kiss on the cheek. An envelope fluttered in her hands.

She announced the nominees and the camera flashed to each of them in turn. When she called Waverly's name, they both appeared, split-screen: Waverly, fighting to keep her smile from exploding; Nicole, grinning ear-to-ear and staring down at Waverly in the audience.

The crowd _aww_ ed.

Nicole ran her thumb under the envelope's seal. She unfurled it and read it. She sighed, long and deep, pressing the envelope to her chest. Then she leaned into the mic.

"The Grammy Award for Song of the Year goes to..."

* * *

Gus whacked Nedley on the knee. "Wake up, old timer!"

He snorted himself awake. "Who're you calling an old timer, you old broad?" He leaned forward, eyes fixed on the TV.

Julian curled over, head between his knees. "Come on," he muttered. "Come on, Waves."

Michelle, propped on the arm of the couch, laid a hand on his back and rubbed soothing circles between his shoulder blades.

* * *

"...Waverly Earp for _Wherever You Are_!"

On-screen, Waverly covered her face with her hands. Wynonna leaned over Doc, laughing, pumping her fist in front of the camera. Waverly peeled herself out of her seat and headed for the aisle.

On-stage, Nicole pressed one hand over her stomach and gripped the microphone stand with the other, her smile brighter than every light shining down upon her.

* * *

Gus pressed a fierce kiss onto Curtis's cheek. Nedley shot from his seat, clapping, then doubled over, clutching at his back. Michelle and Julian leapt off the couch, toppling against each other: her arm around his waist, his around her shoulders. She laughed into his chest.

They paused, gazing at each other. He smiled, leaned down, and kissed the top of her head.

"Our kid," he said.

"Our kid," she repeated, and nuzzled closer.

* * *

Nicole watched Waverly climb the stage and as Waverly drew near, she reached for her. Their hands met. Nicole tried to mingle her fingers with Waverly's, but Waverly hauled herself in like she was drowning and Nicole's arms were a lifeline.

Waverly collected Nicole's face in her hands, rose on the tips of her toes, and kissed her.

Soundly.

Nicole's eyes fluttered closed as her eyebrows leapt in surprise. Her hands settled on Waverly's waist. Then they roped her in; she lifted Waverly, spinning her, Waverly's dress cascading around them.

The crowd wolf-whistled.

The host appeared beside them, making a show of scandalized disapproval, and Waverly and Nicole pulled apart. Waverly accepted her award, holding Nicole's hand. She stepped in front of the mic, holding Nicole's hand. She gave her entire speech holding Nicole's hand.

Afterward, their fingers still entangled, Waverly dragged Nicole offstage and out of sight, and the crowd didn't stop cheering until the host threatened to shut the whole show down.

* * *

**THE KISS SEEN 'ROUND THE WLW INTERNET**  
_Maeve Perley_

THAT.

[wayhaughtgrammykiss.gif]

JUST.

[grammyspin.gif]

HAPPENED.

[kiss_slow_wavestongue.gif]

Goodbye, I'm dead, tell Nicole Haught I love her.

Comments (1138):  
Sort by: _New_  
JustABiGal (10:22 PM): THE MAKER OF THE LAST GIF IS A HERO  
wayyyhaught (10:23 PM): hnnnng  
gooseclaws (10:23 PM): thank god the gifs are working this time

* * *

Morning broke over the homestead like a melting waterfall in spring, and Waverly Earp woke up alone.

As the first tendrils of sunrise crept through the shutters, she turned over and reached for the body next to her, only for her arm to bounce against the mattress with a _thwap_.

Her nose crinkled. She pried herself out of bed and wrapped herself in a blanket. She waded through strewn clothes like a crane stalking through water lilies, hunting her slippers.

The stairs creaked as she padded down to the ground floor. At the bottom, her feet tangled in a bit of fabric; she bent down and picked it up. A smile spread on her face and she held the shirt to her nose: dust, sweat, alcohol, Nicole.

Leaving the shirt dangling on the banister, she made her way to the kitchen. Sticky glasses, an empty bottle of wine and a two-day-old Grammy award stood like chess pieces on the table, remnants of a game each player had been trying her hardest to throw.

Waverly still wasn't sure who'd won.

The coffee pot was mostly full; she tested the temperature through the glass and found it still hot. With a steaming mug in hand, she wandered to the living room.

She found her own shirt there, nowhere near the couch, where she was sure she'd been when she'd lost it. She remembered kneeling on the couch, grinning down at red hair and parted lips, and undoing her buttons one by painstaking one. That had led to hands on her stomach, an unbuckled belt, her lips baiting Nicole toward the stairs.

If the edge of a step hadn't dug into her hip in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, she wondered if they'd have made it upstairs at all.

Making her way back to the front of the house, she stepped onto the porch and finally found Nicole, bundled up against the chill but grinning like the cat who got the cream.

"What on earth are you doing out here?" Waverly asked through a laugh. "It's freezing."

Nicole raised her mug, somehow smiling harder. "Morning, Waves. Morning, Bonus Blanket." She reached out and gave the blanket a tug.

Waverly wondered what Nicole's reaction would be if she _accidentally_ tugged too hard and the blanket _accidentally_ fell, revealing that Waverly had _one-hundred percent intentionally_ not gotten dressed before picking her way downstairs.

She wondered, but she kept the blanket wrapped firmly around herself, because it was too. damn. cold.

"Come back to bed," she said.

Nicole shook her head and took a sip of coffee. "Just let me finish this. Then I'll be all yours."

"You're not already?"

"Waverly Earp, I belong to you, body and soul," said Nicole. She reached out, lifted Waverly's hand to her lips, and kissed her fingers. Her nose brushed the ring that had found its second home on one of those fingers the previous night.

"I know," said Waverly. She squeezed Nicole's hand, then pushed closer, curling herself into Nicole's lap. Nicole gave a happy sort of grunt as Waverly settled in, her free arm curling around Waverly's back and her forehead falling against Waverly's shoulder. "You just need a few moments every now and then to sit outside in the _freezing cold_ and be one with nature. I wouldn't have it any other way."

"No?"

"Absolutely not. You belong here."

"I belong with you."

"Can you stop trying to out-cute me?" Waverly cupped Nicole's jaw and pressed a kiss to her lips. "I belong with you, too. Forever, okay? Wherever you go. Except up the face of a cliff. I'll just meet you when you come back down." She kissed the tip of Nicole's nose.

Nicole laughed. "Forever sounds really nice."

They leaned together, breaths mingling, and watched the first sunrise of the rest of their lives.

* * *

"Waverly?" Nicole peered down at Waverly's chest, where the bonus blanket had loosened a bit. "Are you... not wearing any clothes?"

So much for the sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you it was silly.
> 
> The true end of the story was Chapter 23, but this is the last time I'll get to write an end note for Under Your Sky! All I really have to say is this: 
> 
> This fic means so much to me. Thank you all for giving it a chance and letting me share it with you.
> 
> Anyway, that's all from me for now. Catch me on twitter [@gooseclaws](https://twitter.com/gooseclaws)!


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